Social Responsibility and Belonging in PA Clubs With Underserved Children

• Published in: Research quarterly for exercise and sport Vol. 87; no. S2; p. A58
• Main Authors: Byrd, Brigid C, Martin, Jeffrey J, Garn, Alex C, McCaughtry, Nathan A, Kulik, Noel L, Centeio, Erin E
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington Taylor & Francis Ltd 01.06.2016
• Subjects: Climate; Clubs; Elementary Education; Elementary School Students; Elementary Schools; Ethnicity; Multiple Regression Analysis; Obesity; Self esteem; Social responsibility; State Schools; State Universities
• ISSN: 0270-1367; 2168-3824

Afterschool physical activity (PA) programs represent relatively new initiatives to address population-level health. The ways in which such voluntary programs are viewed by participants are critical for maximizing youth participation. However, very little work examining the psychosocial dynamics of participants' perspectives exists (Garn et al., 2014). Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine feelings of belonging and social responsibility in conjunction with motivational climate perceptions, contingent self-worth, and their interactions of children participating in urban afterschool PA programs. A sample of 304 underserved elementary school children (149 boys, 139 girls, 16 missing) aged 8 to 12 years old (Mage ¼ 9.30 years, SD ¼ 1.11) from an urban city in the Midwestern United States completed a survey during their afterschool PA club at the end of the school year. The survey consisted of 52 questions and 6 scales, which have been previously validated. Participants had multiple ethnic backgrounds (44.2% Black, 36.1% White, 9.2% Multiracial, 6.3% did not report, 2.3% Hispanic, 1.4% Asian American, and 0.3% Arab American). Data were screened for missing values, outliers, and normality. Hierarchical multiple linear regression models were created to predict belonging and social responsibility, and task and ego motivational climate, caring climate, and competition-contingent self-esteem were used as predicting variables. Simple slopes tests were used to probe significant interactions. A total of 39% of the variance was predicted in feelings of belonging largely due to perceptions of leadership emotional support and task climate, and 31% of the variance was predicted in feelings of social responsibility largely due to perceptions of a caring climate. Interaction terms predicted an additional 4% of variance of social responsibility. Our findings support the importance of afterschool PA programs, which appear to provide nurturing environments that may contribute to feelings of belonging and social responsibility. Four significant interactions also suggested that perceptions of the climate in predicting belonging and social responsibility are also dependent on context-specific contingent self-esteem. These findings add to the body of knowledge on urban afterschool PA programs by highlighting the value of motivational climates and competition-contingent self-esteem in predicting belongingness and social responsibility with an understudied population. However, the degree to which adults leading afterschool PA clubs consider psychosocial factors will likely determine the success of afterschool PA clubs in increasing PA and will potentially help to combat the risk for overweight and obesity.