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www.HFRP.org

The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.

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Harvard Family Research Project received a 2-year grant, beginning in November 2004, from the William T. Grant Foundation to support a quantitative study of the individual and contextual predictors of participation in out-of-school time (OST) activities.

Why Learning About Participation Is Important
Practitioners want to know how to attract and sustain participation in OST programs in order to maximize the potential benefits to those participating. At the same time, OST funders are invested in understanding how to measure participation in more meaningful ways. Policymakers want to know how much participation is enough to improve youth outcomes.
These issues are especially salient for youth who are at risk for social and academic problems. These youth can reap the largest benefits from participating in OST activities, but they are the least likely to participate. There is little information about the factors that contribute to getting youth “in the door” and keeping them engaged—a critical missing link in our understanding of participation and its association to outcomes.

Goals of the Study
To answer these questions, we conducted a quantitative research project, coupled with a strong strategic communications plan, aimed at examining about the predictors of children's participation in OST activities.

Specifically, we are examining the following questions:

  1. What are the child, family, school, and neighborhood predictors of participation? In particular, are disadvantaged youth less likely to have access to or participate in out-of-school time activities?
  2. How do child, family, school, and neighborhood characteristics interact to predict participation in out-of-school activities?

The Data
To effectively address our questions, we conducted secondary data analyses on two national datasets, namely the Panel Study of Income Dynamics - Child Development Supplement (PSID-CDS) and the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS88). Each study contains rich contextual indicators and OST activity measures that allow us to examine multiple predictors and dimensions of participation (e.g., intensity, duration). These datasets also help to paint a detailed picture of participation for youth and contexts that are commonly underrepresented in the literature; the PSID-CDS population is particularly diverse due to an over sampling of poor and minority children, and the NELS88 allows for demanding tests of school and neighborhood contexts as children are nested within schools and neighborhoods. Complementary analyses completed across these datasets will take advantage of the unique characteristics of each dataset and provide broader and more rigorous answers to our questions than if we used data from a single local study. This investigation compliments and extends current W. T. Grant funded work, such as projects by Eccles and Brooks-Gunn and Roth, by providing in-depth analyses on multiple predictors of youth's current and sustained participation in two large, nationally representative samples.

Project Team
Heather Weiss, Principal Investigator and HFRP Director
Sandi Simpkins, Co-Investigator, University of Arizona (email: sandra.simpkins@asu.edu)
Eric Dearing, Co-Investigator, Boston College (email: deariner@uwyo.edu)
Holly Kreider, Project Manager, HFRP
Priscilla Little, Research Associate, HFRP
Suzanne Bouffard, Research Associate, HFRP
Chris Wimer, Research Assistant, HFRP

Papers and Presentations From the Study
To read most of these publications, navigate to the Publications & Resources section of our website and search by author name or publication title.

Harvard Family Research Project. (2007). Findings from HFRP's study of predictors of participation in out-of-school time activities: Fact sheet. Cambridge, MA: Author.

Harvard Family Research Project. (2007). Demographic differences in youth out-of-school time participation: A research summary. Cambridge, MA: Author.

Bouffard, S. M., Simpkins, S., & Kreider, H. (2006). Relations between parenting and positive youth development. Manuscript in preparation.

Bouffard, S. M., Wimer, C., Caronongan, P., Little, P. M. D., Dearing, E., & Simpkins, S. D. (2006). Demographic differences in patterns of youth out-of-school time activity participation. Journal of Youth Development, 1(1).

Kreider, H. (2005). Studying contextual predictors of participation in out-of-school time activities. The Evaluation Exchange, 11(1).

Little, P. M. D., Lauver, S., & Harden, S. (2005, October). Engaging adolescents in out-of-school time programs: Learning what works. Remarks presented at the American Youth Policy Forum, Washington, DC.

Simpkins, S. D., et al. (2005, October). Supporting children's development in and out of the classroom. In P. Davis-Kean (Chair), The changing role of parenting across the life span. Symposium conducted at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Human Development, Asilomar, CA.

Simpkins, S. D., Bouffard, S. M., Dearing, E., Wimer, C. Caronongan, P., & Weiss, H. B. (2006) How does parenting matter in adolescence? Insights from variable- and person-centered approaches. Manuscript submitted for publication.

Weiss, H. B. (Chair). (2005). Critical issues in adolescent participation in out-of-school time activities. Symposium presented at the Society for Research on Adolescence Bienniel Meeting, San Francisco, CA.

Wimer, C., Bouffard, S. M., & Caronongan, P., Dearing, E., Simpkins, S. D., Little, P. M. D., & Weiss, H. B. (2005). What are kids getting into these days? Demographic differences in youth out-of-school time participation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Family Research Project.

Wimer, C., & Dearing, E. (2005). Selection into out-of-school time activities: The role of family contexts within and across neighborhoods. Poster session submitted to Society for Research on Adolescence 2006 Bienniel Meeting, San Francisco, CA.

Wimer, C., & Simpkins, S. D.(2005). Adolescent out-of-school time participation: Contextual predictors and developmental differences. In H. B. Weiss (Chair), Critical issues in adolescent participation in out-of-school time activities. Symposium submitted to Research on Adolescence 2006 Bienniel Meeting, San Francisco, CA.

Wimer, C., Simpkins, S. D., Dearing, E., Bouffard, S. M., Caronongan, P., & Weiss, H. B. (2006). Youth out-of-school time participation: Multiple risks and developmental differences. Manuscript submitted for publication.

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Published by Harvard Family Research Project