The relationship between out-of-school activities and positive youth development: An investigation of the influences of communities and families

There is growing evidence that participation in constructive leisure activities facilitates positive youth development. Empirical evidence also supports the influence of families and communities on positive developmental outcomes for adolescents. This study examined the relationship among attitudes toward family and community, participation in structured out-of-school activities, and pro-social behavior. As predicted, community aspects such as opportunities available and the attitudes the youth held toward the community, as well as their attitude toward family were predictive of activity involvement. Activity involvement, in turn, was predictive of pro-social behavior. Attitude toward family was also predictive of attitude toward the community. Attitude toward community WEIS a direct predictor of the positive developmental outcome of pro-social behavior, although contrary to the original hjfpothesis, family influ-ences did not have a direct effect on pro-social behavior. Implications for con-tinued practice and change for a variety of sectors in the positive youth development field such as educators and educational institutions, youth-serv-ing organizations, families, and policy makers are discussed, along with recom-mendations for continued research in this field. Despite growing evidence that participation in constructive leisure activities facilitates positive development, little developmental re-search has been conducted on constructive leisure compared to other contexts. Research on youth tends to fall into the realm of "how do things go wrong " versus "what is going right. " As a result, we have a multitude of research on how to curb drug use, violence, teen preg