Resources for Out-of-School Time Professionals

2008 Archived Research Articles - School Age
The following Research Articles were posted to the Web site on January 3, 2008.

The Impact of After-School Programs that Promote Personal and Social Skills, a report and fact sheet evaluating after-school programs was recently released by the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning.
This article evaluates the impact of after-school programs that attempt to enhance youths’ personal and social skills, identify the nature and magnitude of the outcomes of such programs, and describe the features that characterize effective programs.
http://www.casel.org/downloads/ASP-Full.pdf

After-School Programs and High School Success: Analysis of Post-Program Educational Patterns of Former Middle Grades TASC Participants
A new study from Policy Studies Associates, funded by the C.S. Mott Foundation as part of its national research agenda in the after-school field, found positive outcomes in high school attendance and credit accumulation for former middle-grades TASC participants compared to students who attended the same middle schools but did not participate in after-school programs, and to students who attended similar middle schools that did not have TASC programs.
http://www.tascorp.org/content/document/detail/1758

Outcomes Linked to High-Quality Afterschool Programs: Longitudinal Findings from the Study of Promising Afterschool Programs
This research study finds that disadvantaged students who regularly attend top-notch after-school programs academically surpass peers who spend more out-of-school time in unsupervised activities. The programs, all of which had been operating at least three years when the study began, were selected because of a record of success.
http://www.policystudies.com/studies/yout

2007 Archived Research
The following Research Articles were posted to the Web site on September 19, 2007.

Family Involvement in Elementary School Children’s Education
This study conducted by a Harvard research team demonstrated that parental involvement in a child’s primary school years (K-5) can dramatically improve academic performance and socialization skills. Family involvement can include: helping your child with homework, maintaining good communication with teachers and administrators, supporting literacy, involvement in child’s extracurricular activities, and making connections with the child’s community. Researchers saw improved outcomes across various socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, including improved reading scores, quality work habits, language growth and development, increased motivation, and pro-social skills. Administrators and teachers can do their part by encouraging family involvement through programs, conferences, maintaining good communication, and most importantly, providing ample opportunities for families to take part in their child’s education, both during school and after.
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/hfrp/projects/fine/resource


What About Play?
By Sharna Olfman
Although times are changing rapidly, few people might have guessed that children’s desire to play make-believe would also vanish with the new age. Parks, school yards, and streets are less cluttered with children playing freeze tag or jumping rope, in favor a television, computers, and video games. Moreover, the appeal of Barbies and other methods of fantasy play disappear at an even younger age, starting in the early school age years. However, studies show that pretend play is a developmental tool, and including play as part of your child’s curriculum could enhance reading, language, and learning abilities.
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive


Teaching the Male Brain: How Boys Think, Feel, and Learn in School
Abigail James
Current research indicates that boys learn differently from girls, and have different emotional, cognitive, physical, and social learning experiences from girls. This handbook explores the research that has been done on this phenomenon, and offers strategies that will help teachers develop appropriate educational practices that will respond to the learning needs of school age boys.
http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Male-Brain-Think-School

The following Research Articles were posted to the Web site on May 21, 2007.

Efforts to Improve After-School Program Quality
To strengthen the quality of local after-school programs, the Prime Time Initiative in Palm Beach County, Fla., launched a quality improvement project in 38 after-school programs serving elementary and middle-school students. This Chapin Hall report discusses Prime Time's evaluation effort and the initiative's continuing challenges.

Read the full report or executive summary of The Prime Time Initiative of Palm Beach County, Florida, by Julie Spielberger and Tracey Lockaby.

Promoting Physical Activity and Healthy Nutrition in After School Settings: Strategies for Program Leaders and Policy Makers
This strategy brief outlines the important role that afterschool programs can play in efforts to prevent childhood obesity and includes ideas for incorporating nutrition and fitness into afterschool programming, strategies for financing these efforts, and examples of policies that can support and encourage the afterschool community’s endeavors to steer children toward healthy choices.
The full report is now available online at: http://nccic.acf.hhs.gov/afterschool/fitness_nutrition.pdf


Linking and Learning: Lessons for Afterschool from Early Childhood System-Building Efforts
While early care and afterschool providers serve different populations with distinct needs, there are many similarities in the infrastructure and supports they need to succeed. This paper describes eleven lessons that the afterschool community may learn from the system-building efforts in the field of early care and education.
This publication is available at: http://nccic.acf.hhs.gov/afterschool/linking_learning.pdf

The following Research Articles were posted to the Web site on January 8, 2007.

Teen Perspectives on After-School Programs
Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago
Robert J. Chaskin & Stephen Baker, 2006.
Out-of-school opportunities--such as arts and music programs, sports teams, community service and youth entrepreneurship opportunities--are increasingly seen as potentially powerful tools to promote positive youth development and to prevent problematic behaviors. Based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted with 99 students in 10th grade in four Chicago Public Schools, this Chapin Hall report explores young people’s perspectives on their use of out-of-school time and the influences, barriers, contexts, and processes that contribute to their choices and experiences. The report investigates how young people learn about and choose to get involved in different kinds of out-of-school opportunities and the influence that family members, peers, and non-family adults have on their thinking and decision making. It also explores the relationship between young people’s participation in out-of-school programs and their interests, aspirations, and assessments of the kinds of opportunities and barriers found within their families, schools and neighborhoods. Finally, it offers conclusions and recommendations about how to improve opportunities for young people based on the insights provided by them, including specific suggestions about approaches to outreach, access, ongoing engagement and program provision.
Negotiating Among Opportunity and Constraint: The Participation of Young People in Out-of-School-Time Activities.


Promoting Quality in Afterschool Programs through State Child Care Regulations US Department of Health and Human Services; Administration for Children and Families, Child Care Bureau
The Investments Project, June 2006
This publication provides states with strategies for adapting state child care regulations to better promote quality in afterschool programs. There is also discussion of how states can align child care regulations with other strategies for improving the quality of afterschool programs. The full report is now available online at:
http://www.nccic.org/afterschool/childcareregs.pdf


Community-Based Learning: Engaging Students for Success and Citizenship Coalition for Community Schools
Atelia Melaville, Amy C. Berg, Martin J. Blank
Discover how community schools are using real-world, hands-on problem solving to ignite the imagination and the intellect of our young people. To read the report, click here

2006 Archived Research Articles - School Age
The following Research Articles were posted to the Web site on March 17, 2006.

FOCUS ON FAMILIES
Harvard Family Research Project, in partnership with BOSTnet and United Way of Massachusetts Bay, announces the release of a new comprehensive, easy-to-read guide to understanding how to engage families in after school programs.

"Focus on Families! How to Build and Support Family-Centered Practices in After School" is a critical resource for after school providers looking to create or expand an existing family engagement program. Program leaders, local decision makers, funders, and others interested in promoting good family involvement practice will also find the guide vital to their work. The guide provides a research base for why family engagement matters, concrete program strategies for engaging families, case studies of promising family engagement efforts, and an evaluation tool for improving family engagement practices.

You can read the guide online or print it as a PDF at:
www.gse.harvard.edu/hfrp/projects/afterschool/resources/families

PARENTAL STRESS
Parental After-School Stress and Psychological Well-Being
[From the Feb 2006 issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family]
Rosalind Chait Barnett (Brandeis University) and Karen C. Gareis

The mismatch between employed parents' work schedules and their children's school schedules creates the structural underpinning for an as-yet-unstudied stressor, namely, parental after-school stress, or the degree of parents' concern about their children's welfare after school. We estimate the relationship between parental after-school stress and psychological well-being in a sample of 243 employed parents of children in grades K - 12. Parental after-school stress is related to psychological well-being. This relationship did not differ by parent gender or child age, but was significantly stronger for parents of girls versus boys. Our results suggest that parental after-school stress is an important stressor that affects the well-being of a large segment of the work force and warrants further research.

ROLES & RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PARENTS & SCHOOLS IN URBAN CENTERS

Drawing on the concept of a narrative, this article describes three basic patterns underlying the roles and relationships between parents and educators in urban schools: the deficit, in loco parentis, and relational narratives. Hollyce Giles offers evidence for the narratives from the

research literature and from her interviews and participant observation as a counselor, consultant, and researcher in urban school reform initiatives. The article concludes by identifying strategies that school counselors can use to foster relationships between parents and educators that enhance the academic achievement and social and emotional development of students.
www.schoolcounselor.org/files/8-3-228%20Giles.pdf

AFTERSCHOOL EFFECTIVELY COMBATS OBESITY
A newly released study provides advocates with powerful evidence to support the assertion that afterschool programs have an important role to play in the fight against childhood obesity. Joseph L. Mahoney and Heather Lord of Yale University's psychology department, together with Erica Carryl of New York University's applied psychology department, conclude in a two-year study that participation in afterschool programs helps prevent obesity in young children.

The researchers collected data on 439 racially diverse first- through third-grade students in three public schools in a small northeastern city. (They did not reveal the city.) The scholars had a particular interest in lower-income families and chose schools with that in mind. As a result, 58 percent of the families of the children in the study lived in poverty, with median income in the group, including government assistance, slightly under $17,000 per year.

The researchers tracked obesity among the students over the course of the study, comparing children's body mass index (BMI) with four separate measurements. At the beginning of the study, 18 percent of the students slated to participate in afterschool were obese, compared to 21 percent of the students not enrolled in afterschool. By the end of the two-year study, obesity among afterschool participants increased only slightly to 21 percent, while it ballooned among students not in afterschool to 31 percent.

The authors' conclusion is that afterschool programs may not reverse obesity, but are a powerful buffer against it. "Afterschool program participation may be a promising approach for controlling obesity for three reasons," the researchers write. "First, although some school-based interventions to reduce obesity have shown modest short-term effects, much of a child's overeating and related sedentary behavior (e.g., watching television) occurs during nonschool hours.... Second, children experience high levels of enjoyment when participating in afterschool activities. Compared to obesity reduction approaches that emphasize passive health education or require children to give up negative habits concerning food and activity choices, afterschool program participation may be more palatable."

"Finally," they continue, "recent research shows that children who become involved in afterschool activities during childhood tend to continue their participation through adolescence. Thus, if healthy behaviors are developed through participation in these programs during childhood, they may persist through adolescence."

To read the study, "Afterschool Program Participation and the Development of Child Obesity and Peer Acceptance," visit http://pantheon.yale.edu/%7Ejlm79/Mahoney.Lord.Carryl.2005b.pdf.

The following Research Articles were posted to the Web site on January 6, 2006.

Inside the Blackbox: Exploring the Content of After School:
Program content is closely linked with our understandings about the purpose of after-school programming. As discussions continue about whether or not after-school programs should support academic achievement and calls for accountability continue shaping our understanding of the purpose of after-school, several questions emerge: How do effective programs deliver academic content? Can after-school programs help students master a broader base of content?
www.forumfyi.org/Files//ostpc5.pdf

Out of School Time Policy Commentary #9: When School is Out, Museums, Parks, and Libraries are in:
This study, produced by the Forum for Youth Investment, explores the unique resources of museums, parks and libraries, featuring examples of cutting edge practice and partnerships and highlighting current policy opportunities and challenges. By interviewing several national experts and reviewing existing literature, the authors of this publication attempt to answer such question: Is out-of-school time an important part of the future identity of museums, parks and libraries?
www.forumfyi.org/Files/OSTPC9.pdf

Research Articles - Middle School

Promising Practices and Impact of Youth Engagement in Program Decision-Making and Planning:
Over the past couple of decades, the field of youth development has emphasized youth as assets as they become more involved with programmatic and community governance decisions. It is increasingly recognized that young people are both products and agents of the settings in which they engage, and that these processes provide a basis for their own development.
www.actforyouth.net/documents/ENGAGEMENT Issue Brief.pdf

School Aggression and Dispositional Aggression Among Middle School Boys:
This study, conducted by the National Middle School Association, examined the correlation between dispositional (trait) aggression and reported incidents of school aggression among adolescent males from an urban middle school, seeking to proved that those higher in dispositional aggression would have more records of aggression at school.

2005 Archived Research Articles - School Age
The following Research Articles were posted to the Web site on September 30, 2005.

After-School for All:
A Call to Action from the Business Community: 
This study, conducted by the Corporate Voices for Working Families, examines the critical role high quality after school programs play in supporting the needs of working families and improving young people’s chances of success in both school and life.    
www.cvworkingfamilies.org

All Work and No Play? 
Listening to What Kids and Parents Really Want from Out-of-School Time: 
The study, administered by “Public Agenda” and “The Wallace Foundation,” sought to determine what parents and students really want from an after-school program.  Overall, 79 percent of middle and high school students participate regularly in programs after school and on weekends, but most parents prefer out-of-school programs that foster their children’s interests, values, and enrichment; however, more low-income and minority parents value activities that emphasize academic preparation. 
www.wallacefoundation.org

Research Articles – Middle School

College Prep begins in Middle School:
IOWA CITY, Iowa—Many of America's middle and high school students need more help from schools to effectively plan for the future, according to a recent study by ACT. The study suggests that many students don't start thinking about their post-high school plans early enough, and that those who do may not be taking the right classes to prepare to meet their goals.      
www.act.org/news/releases/2005/5-26-05.html

Transition from Middle School into High School:
Young adolescents today frequently have a difficult time making the transition into high school So the challenge remains for middle school educators to help the young adolescents we nurture and teach in the middle grades make a smooth and successful transition into high school, to consider the transition needs of our students, to respond appropriately to those needs. 
www.nmsa.org/research/rmle/spring04/article_4.htm