Extracurricular activities as a way to foster development for youth living in an extreme context: a basic psychological needs perspective in Madagascar

Numerous studies have highlighted the links between involvement in extracurricular activities and positive outcomes for youth. Nevertheless, studies documenting those links have been conducted primarily in the global North. Little is known about the effect of participating in extracurricular activities for youth developing in extreme contexts (i.e. extreme poverty, refugee camps, conflicted areas, areas affected by climate changes, sexual exploitation or child soldiers). This research is testing if the participation in extracurricular activities of youth (N=96; Mage= 15.07) developing in an extreme context had an effect over time on their psychological well-being as well as the satisfaction and frustration of their basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence and relatedness). Youth were recruited through a partnership with a local NGO in southern Madagascar, which offers art and sports activities. A control group was recruited in a neighboring public school. Participants had never participated in NGO’s extracurricular activities before entering the study. Four data collection sessions were carried out over a span of 16 months. 96 participants engaged throughout the four data collection sessions. Mixed factorial Analyses of Variance were employed to test the objective. Results show that participation in extracurricular activities for youth developing in an extreme context had positive effects on the satisfaction of the need for autonomy (p=.037) and on the frustration of the basic psychological needs overall (p=.019). Also, the study results show that there was a protective effect of participating in extracurricular activities against the decrease of the needs' satisfaction as this reduction was observed in the control group (p=.038) and not in the youth involved in extracurricular activities. Participation in art, music and sport extracurricular activities seems to have positive outcomes for youth living in an extreme context of development.