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Out-of-School Activities

A large portion of children’s and adolescents’ time in the United States is devoted to discretionary or leisure activities outside of normal school hours; some estimates suggest they spend half of their waking hours in these activities. Historically, society has held a somewhat negative view of the importance of these out-of-school activities. However, research over the past 25 years has led to a shift in society’s and scholars’ view of out-of-school activities. There is now widespread recognition that out-of-school activities play an important role in promoting child and adolescent learning.

This entry first provides a clear definition of out-of-school activities, then looks at approaches researchers have taken to study these activities. Next, the participation patterns of youth in out-of-school activities are investigated. Finally, what children and adolescents learn from out-of-school activities is considered, and methodological challenges of studying the impact of these activities are explored.

Defining Out-of-School Activities

As used both here and in research, out-of-school activities refer to activities that are organized and structured occurring outside of the formal school day with some degree of adult supervision or leadership. Thus, unstructured activities, such as time spent “hanging out with friends,” are excluded. The following are other terms that are frequently used for out-of-school activities: organized youth activities/programs, afterschool activities, extracurricular activities, and community- or school-based activities.

In general, children’s and adolescents’ participation in out-of-school activities is considered voluntary, differentiating out-of-school activities from formal education, which typically consists of required activities. It should be noted that for children, participation in out-of-school activities may be somewhat less voluntary and more directed by a parent than in adolescence, particularly if a working parent needs child care during afterschool hours. However, even in such cases, children tend to perceive greater control over what they do in out-of-school activities versus the regular school day.

Out-of-school activities are tied to particular youth-serving programs or organizations. Youth programs run the gamut from local, grassroots programs to long-established national and international programs (e.g., YMCA). A program’s philosophy and perception of what youth need guides the aims and purposes of the program activities. These aims and purposes can vary widely across programs, as well as within a program over time. Not surprising then, the range of activities reflects the diversity of programs’ aims and purposes.

Approaches to Studying Out-of-School Activities

Researchers have created several activity taxonomies in order to study out-of-school activities—a taxonomy represents the particular way a researcher classifies activities into meaningful units that can then be used to understand how learning differs across these units. Understanding these taxonomies, then, is important for interpreting research of out-of-school activities.

One common taxonomy is to group by different types of activities. For example, some research has used a six-group model: sports, performance and fine arts, academic clubs and organizations, community-oriented programs, service programs, and faith-based groups. Other research has used more or fewer categories of activity types, for example, team versus individual sports or service, faith-based, and community-oriented activities combined into one group. The rationale for grouping by type of activity is that participants should have similar learning experiences because the types of activities are also similar.

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