Adolescents who spend their free time in volunteer service or in church-sponsored activities differ in many ways from peers who spend their free time watching television or roaming the streets. But few things predict what adolescents will do with their out-of-school hours more consistently than their family background.
When researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute recently analyzed time use among 454 rural adolescents in grades 9 through 12, they expected to find that positive self-esteem would foster participation in "structured out-of-school activities." To their surprise, they did not. Instead, they repeatedly established the importance of an intact family in encouraging such participation.
The VPI researchers began their recent study "expect[ing] self-esteem to be positively related to activity participation" on the "assumption that a positive sense of self would lead youth to be more involved in activities with others." But the data proved cruel to this hypothesis, as "self-esteem" turned out to be "unrelated to any of the 4 structured out-of-school variables" in the study.
In contrast, the VPI scholars discerned a clear linkage in their data between family structure and certain types of out-of-school activities. "Family structure," they report, "was related to volunteer participation and to church and other religious activities."
In trying to explain why "youth whose parents are divorced are less involved in volunteer activities and in religious-related uses of time," the authors of the new study highlight "practical matters such as there being a parent available to transport the youth to the volunteer site, and other factors such as whether parents themselves are connected with religious organizations post-divorce."
This new study offers little to encourage youth leaders who think they can build on the sands of self-esteem and a great deal to hearten youth leaders who see their work as an extension of foundations laid in family life.
