ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Children and Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1621980
This article is part of the Research TopicCombating Social Isolation Among Youth: Strategies for Enhancing Mental and Physical HealthView all articles
How Parental Involvement in Youth Sports Impacts on School Adjustment: A Dual Mediation Pathway via Sports Interest and Extracurricular Sports Participation
Provisionally accepted
- Chongqing University, Chongqing, China
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This study aimed to examine whether parental involvement in youth sports influences Chinese adolescents' school adjustment and to investigate the mediating roles of extracurricular sports participation and sports interest in this relationship. Methods: Using longitudinal data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) for the 2013-2014 academic year, which included 12,257 junior high school students from China, this study employed a multiple mediation model to analyze the effects of parental involvement in youth sports, sports interest, and extracurricular sports participation on adolescents' school adjustment. Results: The findings revealed that: 1) Parental involvement in youth sports had a significant and independent positive effect on adolescents' school adjustment. 2) Parental involvement in youth sports could also enhance school adjustment by increasing sports interest and promoting extracurricular sports participation, through three distinct pathways: Parental involvement in youth sports → Extracurricular sports participation → School adjustment; Sports interest → Extracurricular sports participation → School adjustment; Parental involvement in youth sports → Sports interest → Extracurricular sports participation → School adjustment. These results elucidate the mechanisms through which parental involvement in youth sports, sports interest, and extracurricular sports participation collectively contribute to adolescents' school adjustment, providing empirical evidence for strategies aimed at improving school adaptation.The study demonstrates that parental involvement in youth sports can directly enhance adolescents' school adjustment, as well as indirectly influence it through sports interest or extracurricular sports participation individually, or via a multiple mediation of sports interest followed by extracurricular sports participation.
Keywords: adolescents, school adjustment, parental involvement in youth sports, sports interest, Extracurricular Sports Participation
Received: 02 May 2025; Accepted: 24 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zheng, Xiang and Yang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Zubing Xiang, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China
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