Homework is probably the last thing many teens feel like doing
after spending all day in the classroom. However, it's what many
typically do when they get home from school. Gallup's most recent
Youth Survey* shows 44% of teens say they often do homework in the
hours between school and dinnertime.
Vying for second place** among teens' typical after-school
activities are playing sports, watching television, and just
hanging out, each mentioned by about one in five teens. Playing
video games and working on the computer were mentioned by 12% and
11%, respectively.
Gender Differences
Boys and girls differ significantly on two after-school
activities: doing homework and playing video games.
Nineteen percent of boys say they typically play video games
after school, compared with 4% of girls. A previous Gallup Youth
Survey indicated that playing video games was one of boys' favorite
ways to spend an evening, while virtually no girls said this (see
"How Do Teens Unwind?" in Related Items).
Potentially more serious is the difference between boys and
girls with regard to homework. More than half of girls (52%) hit
the books right after school, compared with slightly more than a
third of boys (36%). A November 2004 U.S. Department of Education
report found girls have eliminated many large achievement gaps that
existed previously between boys and themselves, and in most cases
have surpassed boys academically. Girls score higher than boys on
reading achievement tests and are less likely to repeat a grade or
drop out of high school. High school senior girls have higher
education aspirations and attend college in greater numbers than
their male counterparts.
According to the report, with the exception of sports, girls
outnumber boys in extracurricular activities, as well. "In 2001,
females were more likely than their male peers to participate in
music or other performing arts, belong to academic clubs, work on
the school newspaper or yearbook, or to participate in the student
council or government."
Overall, roughly one in four teens in the Gallup survey say they
participate in extracurricular activities, like sports, music
practice, drama practice, etc., after school. Edmund Gordon, author
of the new book, Supplementary Education: The Hidden Curriculum
of High Academic Achievement, would no doubt like to see that
number increase. He thinks what kids do outside of school is
possibly even more important than what they do in the classroom.
Gordon writes in his book that he believes increasing out-of-school
educational experiences may be key to closing the achievement gap
between poor, minority children and their white and Asian
counterparts.
But William J. Doherty and Barbara Z. Carlson would probably
approve whole-heartedly of the unscheduled after-school activities
many teens report. In their book, Putting Families First,
Doherty and Carlson argue that rushing to soccer, hockey, karate,
violin, piano, band practice, etc., robs kids of the precious
downtime they crave. "Family life today revolves around the
children's activities, rather than these activities revolving
around the family's schedule," they write. "It wasn't this way
before. The cart and the horse have switched positions in the last
two decades, with hardly anyone noticing until recently. Families
now have schedules previously seen only in presidential
campaigns."
*These results are based on telephone interviews with a
randomly selected national sample of 1,028 teenagers in the
Gallup Poll Panel of households, aged 13 to 17, conducted
Jan. 17 to Feb. 6, 2005. For results based on this sample, one can
say with 95% confidence that the maximum error attributable to
sampling and other random effects is ±3 percentage points.
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical
difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into
the findings of public opinion polls
**Each respondent was allowed to name up to three ways he or
she spends this time on a typical day; the percentages represent
the total number of respondents who mentioned a given activity and
add to more than 100%.
