Els efectes de les activitats no curriculars en els itineraris formatius de les persones joves

Resumen

The purpose of this thesis is to study the effects of non-curricular activities (NCAs) on the educational pathways of young people, bearing in mind their family background and the set of opportunities they have during the transition from compulsory to post compulsory education. One of the questions guiding the research is if non-curricular activities can reduce social inequalities by increasing the educational opportunities of students from lower socio-educational background. First contribution of the thesis is conceptual, consolidating non-curricular activities as an inclusive concept of school-based extracurricular activities, outside of school extracurricular activities and available time activities. Also, it has been introduced the idea of available time activities as a concept to describe activities practiced outside of school, with no formal commitment and no adult supervision. Second contribution regards social structure: there is an unequal access and practice in NCAs according to sex, family educational level and geographic origin, in both educational stages. However, it is possible to say that, in Barcelona, non-curricular activities are quite democratic. Other contribution is that, among young people from Barcelona, the practice of non-curricular activities decreases slightly in the transition from compulsory secondary education to post compulsory education. When it comes to academic effects, main non-curricular activities associated with an improvement of academic outcomes in compulsory secondary education are organized sport, artistic activities -music and theatre at school- and relational activities. Relational activities are beneficial activities up to a certain point. After a certain time limit, a turning point appears, and the activity begins to have detrimental effects on academic attainment. In the case of playing sport regularly in a club, the positive effect on pupils’ academic performance is not only in compulsory secondary education, but also in post compulsory education. Playing a musical instrument and reading a book for pleasure are available time activities with a positive effect on all types of engagement (behavioural, cognitive, and emotional), but they don’t have a direct or indirect positive effect on school attainment. Something similar happens with sport activity (not organized), because it is an available time activity with a positive effect on emotional and cognitive engagement, but with no direct or indirect effect on academic performance of youth. Furthermore, some conclusions have been drawn regarding the question whether non-curricular activities can reduce educational inequalities, increasing educational opportunities of young people with profiles associated with worst academic performance. The results have shown that, if boys with the lowest level of family education play music or theatre at school, their average grade raises almost until the average grade of boys with intermediate family level of education. In case of girls, the same buffering effect of NCAs occurred with sport activity. This research has also identified a type of discourse among youth where it is expressed that having a paid hobby while combining studies and work does not mean having a job expectation related to NCAs. This type of response is common among university students, for whom NCAs work as a strategy for earning an income, but do not represent a career guidance. In contrast, among higher vocational students, the discourse is different. Upper-class students want to continue working in an area linked to their non-curricular activities, while working-class students' job expectations are more related to their studies than to their hobbies and first jobs. In this sense, the discourse of working-class young people shows that as they move up the educational pyramid, from vocational training to university, the role of NCAs in their lives becomes more expressive and less instrumental.