Activities may curb dropout rates

Extracurricular activities – which are the most likely programs to be cut when state education budgets dwindle – may help keep students in high school, according to a UC study.

"Our study shows that student engagement behaviors, including participating in extracurricular activities, contribute to the formation of friendship networks which arc toward educational attainment; the same behaviors detract from the likelihood that students will become susceptible to the social and behavioral influences of others who drop out of school," said assistant professor Robert Ream of UC Riverside's Graduate School of Education.

Ream conducted the study with Russell Rumberger, professor of the Gervirtz Graduate School of Education at UC Santa Barbara. The study shows that the socioeconomic disadvantages of Mexican American adolescents detracts from a student's ability to participate in extracurricular activities.

Low-income Mexican American students may be less able to participate because they have to hold after-school jobs or care for their siblings while their parents are at work. Low-income students may not be able to afford the fees some extracurricular activities require.

Disengaged students are also more likely to have friends who have dropped out of school. Various studies show that having dropout friends increases the chances of a student not graduating.

"Students need to have opportunities available in a broad range of school-related activities," Ream said. "Drama and the arts, or sports, even the academic decathlon are engagement behaviors that help kids develop school-oriented peer networks and facilitate their ability to seamlessly navigate home and school environments."