The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine will convene an ad hoc committee of experts to conduct a consensus study on learning and development of low income youth in out-of-school time (OST) settings across the K-12 age span. Specifically, the study will focus on students from low-income households, across urban, suburban, and rural settings. Analyses of findings will attend to issues of intersectionality of economic stress with other factors that have operated historically to marginalize young people, such as gender, sexual orientation, race, age, disability, and involvement with justice or child welfare systems, among others. The committee will establish and describe quality standards of inclusion to ensure that only the most robust qualitative and quantitative studies are included in the review and will address and make recommendations for the following questions:
1. How can OST programs specifically designed to serve K-12 youth from low- income households be characterized (e.g., program goals, audiences, governance structures/staffing, size, dosage, programmatic approaches, and theories of change)? How and why do these characteristics vary among OST programs? Are there any patterns among these organizational dimensions related to community served, focus/purpose, geographic region, or other factors?
2. What is the evidence on the effectiveness and outcomes of OST programs for promoting learning, development (social, emotional, intellectual, and physical), and wellbeing for children and youth from low-income households? How are these constructs defined and measured by programs and in the research literature? Do findings vary by sub-groups of low-income youth experiencing additional forms of structural inequality?
a. What approaches are linked to positive effects, across a range of quantifiable outcomes? How do results vary by demographic factors (e.g., age, ethnicity/race, gender, gender identity, disability) and program approach (including governance structures and dosage) as well as intersectionality with additional forms of structural inequality?
b. What other types of outcomes have been documented in the research (e.g., social, emotional, academic, workforce) and how do these differ by demographic factors (e.g., age, ethnicity/race, gender, gender identity, disability) and program approach (including governance structures and dosage), as well as intersectionality with additional forms of structural inequality?
3. How can existing policies and regulations for OST programs be improved to ensure high-quality opportunities for children and youth from low-income households? How might these vary when low-income youth experience additional forms of structural inequality?
4. What are the existing gaps in the literature that can be addressed to produce more robust findings about how OST can support learning and development for children and youth from low-income households? How might these vary when low income youth experience additional forms of structural inequality?