This study aimed at identifying and describing patterns of sports participation during high school among a general population of students and examining individual, social, and environmental predictors of pattern membership. A sample of 287 high school students (61% girls) from Quebec (Canada) annually reported all the organized sports in which…

Encouraging involvement in school-based extracurricular activities (ECA) may be important for preventing high school dropout. However, the potential of these activities remains underexploited, perhaps because studies linking ECA involvement and dropout are rare and based on decades-old data. Previous studies also ignore key parameters of student…

To examine whether trajectories of participation in organized activities during the high school years and beyond (from ages 14 to 20) predicted outcomes at age 21 (externalizing problems, internalizing problems, civic engagement, number of years of education, and perception of physical health), 354 youths (60% girls) were surveyed annually over…

Current knowledge of intraindividual longitudinal patterns of civic participation (CP) and their predictors remains limited. As life cycle trends are showing a decline in civic/political involvement during early adulthood years, increased understanding of these aspects could enhance efforts to promote greater and/or sustained CP trajectories among…

Research in developed countries has found that paternal involvement has positive and significant effects on early childhood development (ECD). Less is known, however, about the state of paternal involvement and its influence on ECD in rural China. Using data collected in Southern China that included 1,460 children aged 6-42 months and their…

Unlike organized activities such as sports and arts, civic activities in adolescence (e.g., volunteering, student government) have been less studied in relation to school success and almost all existing evidence consists of cross-sectional findings. In a longitudinal study, 1035 pupils (64% females, 20% nonwhite, M[subscript age] = 14.21 years)…

This study examined the effects of school climate (open classroom and positive student relationships) and personality dispositions (shyness and need for cognition) on adolescents' political self-efficacy. Data were collected in 2014 from 1,954 Czech ninth- and tenth-graders (mean age = 15.60). A multilevel analysis showed that school-level…

Sport is a context that provides positive developmental benefits to adolescents. However, these benefits are not distributed equally to all participants. This study examined whether the motivational constructs of attainment value and ability self-concept were related to positive developmental experiences in sport, and tested intensity of…

In order to prepare students for adulthood and responsible citizenship, most high schools offer extracurricular activities designed to facilitate the learning of a wide range of competencies. The purpose of this study was to examine how participation in a single or a combination of extracurricular school activities for high school students may…

It is generally assumed that civic education efforts will have a positive effect on the political attitudes and behaviors of adolescents and young adults. In the present study, we distinguish among formal civic education, an open classroom climate, and active learning strategies, and we explore their relation with political interest, efficacy,…

The goal of this study was to explore the longitudinal associations between youth activity participation and adjustment over the high school years by examining (a) correlations between participation and adjustment growth curves, and (b) bidirectional links between participation and adjustment from one year to the next. Participation was…

Immigrant parents (first generation) and adolescents (second generation) from El Salvador and India (N = 80) took part in interviews on civic engagement. The immigrants were almost unanimous in regarding civic engagement as important. They also were engaged themselves, more so at the community than the political level. One third of immigrants were…