“Let's hang out!”: Understanding social ties among linguistically diverse youth in urban afterschool programs

This study examines the associations among cross-linguistic social ties, individual-level social network and demographic characteristics, and academic and social-emotional outcomes in a sample of third to eighth grade Latine and Black youth attending urban afterschool programs. Guided by social capital and social learning perspectives, this study is one of the first to explore the associations of social ties among Spanish-speaking bilingual youth and native English-speakers in the afterschool setting. We found that youth who have more ties in the classroom social network have more cross-linguistic connections than would be expected given the afterschool classroom composition. Moreover, having more cross-linguistic ties at the start of the year was associated with higher academic and social self-concept in the spring, adjusting for baseline skills and other covariates. These findings suggest that cross-linguistic ties in the afterschool setting may contribute to positive social and developmental outcomes in late childhood and early adolescence.