Extracurricular Involvement in Community Youth Centers: A Study of School-aged Adolescents, Parents and Center Staff in Mainland China

ABSTRACT

This study examines adolescents' involvement in extracurricular activities provided by community youth centers in Mainland China and their perceptions of the benefits of this type of extracurricular involvement. Based on principal data obtained from a survey of 1,544 adolescents aged between 9 and 14, together with supplementary data collected from surveys of 1,116 parents of these adolescents and 632 staff members of community youth centers in five cities in Mainland China—Beijing, Guangzhou, Kunming, Lanzhou and Wuhan—the present study finds a great disconnection between the service condition of community youth centers and what adolescents expect and perform in the centers. Moreover, our findings on extracurricular involvement among adolescents in various academic grades show a tendency for adolescents to become progressively more pessimistic. Specifically, extracurricular involvement and perceptions of most of the benefits of such involvement are less strong among adolescents in higher grades than they are among adolescents in lower grades. In addition, despite a similar pattern regarding perceived benefits of extracurricular involvement between adolescents and parents, the ratings of parents on all benefit items were much lower than those given by their children. The research and practical implications of the current findings for promoting extracurricular involvement in community youth centers among Chinese adolescents are discussed.