Participation in extracurricular leisure activities among primary school pupils: Effects of ethnic-cultural background, gender and school diversity

Participation in sports and other leisure activities can be an effective tool to enhance feelings of societal belongingness and inclusion among minority group members. Through a survey administered to 8,444 pupils, the present study compared minority pupils' (Middle Eastern and Eastern European youth) and majority pupils' involvement in a broad array of sport activities, other (non-sports) extracurricular leisure activities, and youth organizations. Corroborating previous research, our study revealed lower participation rates for minority (compared to majority) pupils for all categories of leisure activities under study. For sport activities, this gap was particularly pronounced for female (compared to male) pupils. Furthermore, school diversity had an invariable negative effect on participation rates in all activity categories. A noteworthy finding was that the difference in participation between majority and ethnic-cultural minority groups were sports dependent. We also obtained definite differences in participation rates between the Middle Eastern and Eastern European groups.