The Hispanic Extracurricular Participation Gap

Karin E. Kitchens and William Gormley

Social Science Quarterly, 2018, vol. 99, issue 5, 1776-1790

Abstract: Objectives Scholars have noted a gap in extracurricular (EC) participation between Hispanic students and other students. But why exactly does this gap exist? We consider four possible explanations: parental awareness, financial resources, family obligations, and access to EC activities. Methods To test these possible explanations for the EC participation gap, we use data on middle school participation in EC activities from Tulsa, Oklahoma. We fit a series of ordinary least squares models to analyze membership in EC activities across seven activity types for 381 Hispanic and 447 white students in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We also investigate whether EC activity predicts academic outcomes in middle school. Results Parental awareness is the dominant predictor of EC activity. EC activity also has positive effects on math test scores, math and reading grades, and overall grade point average, even after controlling for early academic success. Conclusions The key to narrowing the Hispanic‐white EC participation gap would seem to be greater parental awareness of the value of EC activities as well as practical steps that might be taken to enlist children in such activities.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12534

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:socsci:v:99:y:2018:i:5:p:1776-1790

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0038-4941

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science Quarterly is currently edited by Robert L. Lineberry

More articles in Social Science Quarterly from Southwestern Social Science Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().