User:Cpm5

Hello, I am a student at Rice University where I major in History and minor in Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities. I am interested in educational inequality, particularly in racial disparities in education quality in urban areas in the United States.

For a class assignment last semester, I edited the School integration in the United States article, and I am currently working on the after-school activity article, as detailed below.

Spring 2017: Proposed Edits for "after-school activity" article

I would like to edit the article entitled “after-school activity.” The current article lacks empirical studies surrounding the effects of afterschool programs on child and adolescent development, included within this is a lack of information on the impact of afterschool programs on the physical well-being of students, in addition to their academic performance. Perhaps most importantly though, is that there is very little information on the intersection between socioeconomic class and afterschool programs in this article; I would like to work on that aspect of the article in particular. There are currently only 12 sources, and I would definitely be able to add a wider variety of scholarly sources to the article to increase its breadth, depth, and credibility.

  Most of the sources that I have access to only focus on after-school activities in the United States, so I contemplated creating a new article entitled “after-school activities in the United States,” as I worried about creating an article that lacked a balanced worldview. However, as the parent article is so underdeveloped, I thought it would be more appropriate to edit it instead. Though most of my sources are U.S.-centric, there would still be a fair amount of the article that I could improve on, even without a more global source-base. For example, many of the scholarly articles that I have read on the topic discuss the impact of after-school programs on children and adolescents. Though the structure of programs differs worldwide, the ultimate aim of most programs is to aid the development of children and adolescents in some way. Thus, many of the benefits would likely be the same, regardless of country of origin.

This topic directly relates to poverty, justice, and human capabilities, as after-school activities are a critical way that schools and communities are attempting to address issues like childhood poverty, educational inequality, and the achievement gap. There are many success program models in the United States that have been replicated across the country with successful, empirical results. I would imagine that the success of these programs and the psychological and academic benefits of after-school programs could transcend national lines, as well. The current article on after-school programs lacks the vast majority of this information; there is one small paragraph about how after-school activity attendance can decrease drug use amongst adolescents, but that is the only sociological impact that is mentioned. The majority of the article discusses potential structures of afterschool programs and potentially activities such as sports or arts programs. Which the organization of after-school activities is a reasonable sub-section, the impacts of these programs on children and adolescents are far more important and warrant far more attention in the article.

A reasonable article to compare my planned “after-school activities in the United States” article too is the “achievement gap in the United States” article. They can both fall under the similar theme of education inequality, but the achievement gap article is incredibly well developed. The article is long, with a multitude of sub-sections that all explore different facets of the topic. Two aspects of the achievement gap are discussed: the race gap and the gender gap. This shows that instead of immediately assuming that the achievement gap is only related to race, its authors thought about other interpretations of the phrase, and included more nuances in their article in order to account for differing perspectives. An interesting aspect of the article is that it does not start with a “history” or “background” section like many articles with similar topics do. Instead, it dives straight into providing evidence that the gap exists, which is then followed by a section on the debate of the origin of the gap. Because my proposed topics is less controversial than the achievement gap article, I believe that I would be able to start with a “background” section that explains the history of after-school programs and various reasons for their need, particularly in areas with lower socioeconomic statuses. Or potentially, I could this information in the article header, depending on the amount of information available. But just as the achievement gap article includes different perspectives, I would in turn need to include different perspectives in my article. Though my first thought when I hear the phrase “after-school activity” is for programs targeting low-income students, there are after-school activities in place that target students from privileged backgrounds. Though I personally think this is less critical to discuss, it would be important to at least mention these sorts of programs in the article as well for the sake of balance.

In the following section, I will detail what I plan to include in each newly proposed section and provide a list of sources underneath my descriptions that directly relate to the information I plan to add to the article.

Structure and Organization: This section would include two sections that are already present in the article: typical activities and management. The “typical activities” section lists potentially forms that after-school activities can take place as, which is reasonable to include. The information within the management section feels out of place, so I would elaborate on it by providing an overview of different institutions that can manage and organize afterschool program, namely, public schools, non-profits, churches, and for-profit companies like test prep organizations.  I would be sure to note how the distribution of programs varies from country to country, which would provide a good lead-in to the next section of the article.

·      Berlak, Harold (2009). "Race and the Achievement Gap". In Au, Wayne. Rethinking Multicultural Education: Teaching for Racial and Cultural Justice. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Rethinking Schools. ISBN 9780942961423.

·      Mahoney, J. L., Larson, R. W., & Eccles, J. S. (Eds.). (2005). Organized activities as contexts of development: Extracurricular activities, after school and community programs. Psychology Press.

·      Flannery, Daniel J., Laura L. Williams, and Alexander T. Vazsonyi. "Who are they with and what are they doing? Delinquent behavior, substance use, and early adolescents' after‐school time." American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 69, no. 2 (1999): 247-253.

Local regions: This section already exists, and provides explanations of after-school programs in the United Kingdom, the United States, and India. I would attempt to streamline the U.S. part of the article, as it currently feels very unorganized. I would also be interested in adding a section on Taiwan, as that was one other country where I could find scholarly sources available online regarding after-school activities there.

·      Diekstra, R. F., & Gravesteijn, C. (2008). Effectiveness of school-based social and emotional education programmes worldwide. Social and emotional education: An international analysis, 255-312.

·      Chen, Su Yen, and Luo Lu. "After-school time use in Taiwan: Effects on educational achievement and well-being." Adolescence 44, no. 176 (2009): 891.

·      Su, Hsiu-chih. "After-school programs in Taiwan: Program features and child adjustment." PhD diss., University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2001.

Benefits of after-school programs: This new section is what I would consider to be the most important section of the article, as it would include a variety of quantitative and qualitative studies that explore the impact of after-school activities on children and adolescents. I have divided it into three subsections: parental aid, academic growth, and personal growth. The parental aid section would include bits from the current section on “Filling Time” and “Independence,” as both of those discuss how after-school programs aid parents who work full-time and provide opportunities for children to engage in healthy ways to spend time. The academic section would discuss the effectiveness of after-school programs on reducing the achievement gap, increasing school attendance, and increasing test scores. This addresses both programs aimed at low-income students and programs aimed at privileged students. Finally, the personal growth section would discuss the various leadership and service opportunities that are available through afterschool programs and the impact of programs of this nature on students.

·      Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., & Pachan, M. (2010). A meta‐analysis of after‐school programs that seek to promote personal and social skills in children and adolescents. American journal of community psychology, 45(3-4), 294-309.

·      Posner, J. K., & Vandell, D. L. (1994). Low‐Income Children's After‐School Care: Are There Beneficial Effects of After‐School Programs?. Child development, 65(2), 440-456.

·      Becker, Bronwyn E.; Luthar, Suniya S. (2002). "Social-emotional Factors Affecting Achievement Outcomes Among Disadvantaged Students: Closing the Achievement Gap". Educational Psychologist. 37(4). 

·      Evans, S. W., Schultz, B. K., DeMars, C. E., & Davis, H. (2011). Effectiveness of the Challenging Horizons after-school program for young adolescents with ADHD. Behavior Therapy, 42(3), 462-474.

·      Trost, S. G., Rosenkranz, R. R., & Dzewaltowski, D. (2008). Physical activity levels among children attending after-school programs. Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 40(4), 622.

·      Apsler, R. (2009). After-school programs for adolescents: A review of evaluation research. Adolescence, 44(173), 1.

Criticisms of after-school programs: Currently, the header of the article mentions some criticisms of after-school programs (namely, helicopter parents pushing their children too hard), but there is no trace of that in the article. Additionally, for the sake of keeping the article balances, I thought it would be fair to include a small criticism section to reflect the small number of criticisms of after-school programs.

·      Posner, J. K., & Vandell, D. L. (1994). Low‐Income Children's After‐School Care: Are There Beneficial Effects of After‐School Programs?. Child development, 65(2), 440-456.

·      Apsler, R. (2009). After-school programs for adolescents: A review of evaluation research. Adolescence, 44(173), 1.

·      Segrin, Chris, Alesia Woszidlo, Michelle Givertz, Amy Bauer, and Melissa Taylor Murphy. "The association between overparenting, parent‐child communication, and entitlement and adaptive traits in adult children." Family Relations 61, no. 2 (2012): 237-252.

Finally, I will add links to my article from the achievement gap, at-risk students, educational inequality and childcare pages and will add links from my article to those pages as well. The at-risk student article in particular would be relevant, as there is a small section about after-school programs for at-risk children on that page, which directly correlates to my article. All of these links will increase traffic to my page.

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