Out-of-School

The Prevalence of Out-of-School Activity Participation

The term out-of-school typically refers to weekday hours when parents are at work and unable to directly supervise their children during the after school hours; recently, this time has been called the after-3–hours. It is estimated that about 25 percent of K–12 youth in the United States, approximately 14.3 million youth, are unsupervised during these after-3–hours, with the rate increasing to nearly one-third in families where both parents work or in single-headed families. Among older youth in Grades 9 through 12, the rate of unsupervised time during the after-3–hours is much higher, at around 60 percent. Although unsupervised time is not inherently detrimental, having large blocks of time without supervision is known to place youth at risk for behavioral and academic problems. Out-of-school activities provide important places where youth can spend time engaged in structured endeavors during the after-3 hours, providing a [Page 661]host of positive personal and social benefits while diminishing potential risks.

The Variety of Out-of-School Activities

In the United States there is a wide range of organized out-of-school activities from which youth can choose to participate. The term out-of-school activities is often used as the broader heading to which activities belong and is not related to where the activities occur, such as on school grounds or in a community center. The range of activities available to youth includes sports, arts, academic, service, and community-oriented and faith-based youth groups, although these categories are not the only way of grouping activities. Some researchers, for example, combine service and faith-based youth groups together. Research shows that sport activities draw the highest rates of participation among youth, followed by art activities; this includes school-sponsored activities and non-school activities. Based on a representative sample of 11th-grade youth, Reed Larson, David Hansen, and Giovanni Moneta reported that 87.7 percent of youth in their study participated in at least one of the categories of organized activities, and 70.3 percent participated in two or more activities concurrently. Thus, a large majority of youth in the United States regularly participate in organized activities. Although youth in the United States generally have a wide variety of activities to choose from, it should be kept in mind that the variety and availability of activities differ markedly by the geographic location (e.g., rural vs. suburb) and economic conditions of the community.

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