Le risque de décrochage scolaire et la participation à des activités parascolaires à l’école secondaire : effets médiateurs des symptômes dépressifs et des problèmes de comportement extériorisés

Authors

  • Valérie St-Pierre
  • Anne-Sophie Denault
  • Laurier Fortin

Abstract

The goal of this study is to examine if depressive symptoms and behaviour problems are linked to students’ degree of participation in extracurricular activities and their risk of dropping out of high school. The degree to which students participate in extracurricular activities is measured by the number of hours they spend in these activities. The risk of school dropout is measured by the level of parental commitment in the activities regarding school, the attitudes of the youth toward the school, their perception of their level of success at school, their school aspirations and the level of parental supervision. During two consecutive years, 2,094 youth (53% of girls) from the first to the third grades of secondary school (Grades 7 to 9 in USA) completed a survey with a school dropout screening software (Logiciel de dépistage du décrochage scolaire - Fortin & Potvin, 2007), which provided the data for the present study. In the tested models, the results indicate that neither the depressive symptoms, nor the behaviour problems act as mediators on the relation between participation in extracurricular activities and school dropout. Yet, the results demonstrate that the intensity of participation in extracurricular activities predicts a decrease of the risk of school dropout for the following year. These results differ, however, according to the activity type and youth’s gender.

Keywords: Risk of school dropout, extracurricular activities, adolescents, depressive symptoms, behaviour problems.

Published

2012-07-22

How to Cite

St-Pierre, V., Denault, A.-S., & Fortin, L. (2012). Le risque de décrochage scolaire et la participation à des activités parascolaires à l’école secondaire : effets médiateurs des symptômes dépressifs et des problèmes de comportement extériorisés. Canadian Journal of Education/Revue Canadienne De l’éducation, 35(2), 379–400. Retrieved from https://journals.sfu.ca/cje/index.php/cje-rce/article/view/1289

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Section

Articles