Children's Extracurricular Activities: How Family Conditions and Parenting Strategies Shape Daily Life

Liberated Everyday Life”: How Territorial, Socio-Cultural, and Family Contexts Shape the Structure of Children’s Out-of-School Time Name Surname Abstract The article examines the structure of extracurricular time for schoolchildren depending on the socio-economic status of the family, gender, age, place of residence and the specifics of parental strategies. Based on a survey of 15,968 parents in one of the regions of the North Caucasus, differences in children's participation in organized and unstructured practices were revealed. The results showed that the involvement in clubs and classes with tutors varies depending on socio-demographic characteristics: children from families with a high level of education of parents and residents of cities are more likely to participate in them. Gender differences are expressed mainly in attendance at clubs and sections where boys are more active. Participation in tutoring classes increases by the senior grades and is closely related to exam preparation. The strategy of joint development of parents positively correlates with the involvement of children in organized forms of leisure, although the strength of the connection is low. The analysis also showed that families with low socio-economic status and those living in rural areas are less likely to organize extracurricular activities through clubs and sections, which increases educational inequality. The results obtained make it possible to clarify the mechanisms of reproduction of social inequality in the educational sphere and provide grounds for developing measures to support families and schoolchildren in the context of regional differences.