The Engagement Gap

• Author: Carl B. Frederick,Kaisa Snellman,Jennifer M. Silva,Robert D. Putnam
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716214548398
• Published date: 01 January 2015
• Date: 01 January 2015
• Subject Matter: Section II: Special Topics Relevant to Building a New Infrastructure

194 ANNALS, AAPSS, 657, January 2015

DOI: 10.1177/0002716214548398

The

Engagement

Gap: Social

Mobility and

Extracurricular

Participation

among

American Youth

By

KAISA SNELLMAN,

JENNIFER M. SILVA,

CARL B. FREDERICK,

and

ROBERT D. PUTNAM

548398ANN The Annals of the American AcademyThe Engagement Gap

research-article2014

Participation in extracurricular activities is associated

with positive youth outcomes such as higher education

attainment and greater future earnings. We present

new analyses of four national longitudinal surveys of

American high school students that reveal a sharp

increase in the class gap in extracurricular involvement.

Since the 1970s, upper-middle-class students have

become increasingly active in school clubs and sport

teams, while participation among working-class stu-

dents has veered in the opposite direction. These grow-

ing gaps have emerged in the wake of rising income

inequality, the introduction of “pay to play” programs,

and increasing time and money investments by upper-

middle-class parents in children’s development. These

trends need to be taken into account in any new initia-

tive to monitor mobility. They also present a challenge

to the American ideal of equal opportunity insofar as

participation in organized activities shapes patterns of

social mobility.

Keywords: extracurriculars; social mobility; inequal-

ity; social capital; youth; education; social

class

Public education was originally designed to

be a great equalizer in American society,

redistributing opportunities to children from

less advantageous backgrounds and thus

increasing social mobility. From the Common

School movement of the 1840s to the GI Bill of

the 1940s, reformers sought to level the playing

Kaisa Snellman is an assistant professor of organiza-

tional behavior at INSEAD. Her research focuses on

inequality in organizations and labor markets and the

effects of rising income inequality on social mobility

and public health. Her work has been published in the

Annual Review of Sociology and the Proceedings of the

National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Jennifer M. Silva is an assistant professor of sociology at

Bucknell University. Her research examines inequality,

culture, and the transition to adulthood. She is the

author of Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood

in an Age of Uncertainty (Oxford 2013). Her work has

been published in the American Sociological Review

and Social Forces.