School's Out: An Analysis of Afterschool Sports Programs

Abstract

Increased funding and attendance for afterschool programs has led to a growing literature investigating the relationship between afterschool program participation attendance and positive growth in school. The literature investigating afterschool sports programs in particular, however, is relatively out of date. This study uses the nationally representative sample from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS) to examine how afterschool sports participation is related to in-school attendance, behavior, and effort. Our regressions find that attendance and behavior are not significantly correlated with sports participation, while effort is significantly and positively associated with sports participation. We then conducted analyses to examine the differential effects of sports participation on different racial, social, and economic subgroups. Our analysis was unable to conclude that any subgroup has significantly different relationships between sports participation and in-school outcomes. We then propose further areas for researchers to focus on, as well as the implications of this research for policymakers.