Kids’ Extracurricular Activities the Focus of the Next Science Seminar

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

BRANDON, MB — Continuing the second semester’s offerings within the BU Science Seminar Series will be Dr. Shannon Gadbois, of the Department of Psychology at BU. Her talk, entitled “Extracurricular activities involvement in Canadian youth: Benefits based on age, gender and type of activity”, will be given on Friday, March 16, at 3 p.m., in Room 447 of the Brodie Building. Her research was supported by Sport Canada.

For her project, Dr. Gadbois and her collaborators will be completing a series of manuscripts based on a Canadian sample of almost 2,000 youth. This data set clearly reflects the unique Canadian context that shows youth participation in typically Canadian activities, like hockey, curling, rodeo, performing arts, and volunteering.

“This research will provide us with unique insight into the differences in benefits that arise from participation in both organized and informal activities as well as youths’ own ideas about how varied these benefits can be,” wrote Dr. Gadbois. “Our research shows that we must continue to find ways to make a range of organized school and community-based activities accessible to all youth. At a time when there are financial pressures on schools, organizations and communities, we determined through our studies that we cannot afford to reduce funding and support for youth recreation programs.”

She suggests that whatever is necessary needs to be done to sustain these programs, given that off-loading these expenses puts greater pressure on individual families and may lead to the exclusion of a large portion of today’s youth in Canada.

Admission to Dr. Gadbois’ talk is free and everyone is welcome to attend.
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For more information, please contact:

Joanne F. Villeneuve
Communications
Brandon University
270 – 18th Street
Brandon, MB R7A 6A9
Tel. 204-727-9762
villeneuvej@brandonu.ca

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