Parental influences on adolescent involvement in community activities

Youth involvement in extracurricular activities reflects both family socialization influences and civic development. Parents can promote such activity through examples set by personal involvement in the community and through reinforcement of their children's interests. Using data (N = 362) from the 9th and 10th grade waves of the Iowa Youth and Families Project (Conger & Elder, 1994), we find that both the behavioral model set by parents and their personal reinforcement of children's actions make significant differences in the extracurricular activity involvement of boys and girls. However, parental reinforcement is most consequential when parents are not engaged in community activities. In this situation, warm parents are likely to reinforce their children, and this reinforcement strengthens children's involvement in community activities. The family dynamics of civic socialization deserve more attention than they have received to date.