Constraints on Youth Participation in Evening Schools: Empirical Evidence from Shenyang, China

In recent years, youth evening schools have proliferated across China as a novel public cultural practice, serving as an important platform for youth development, lifelong learning, and youth-friendly urban initiatives. Existing research has predominantly focused on macro-policy, organizational arrangements, and social outcomes, while studies centered on youth participants remain are limited. In particular, empirical inquiry into the motivational and formative mechanisms underlying youth participation is insufficient. Drawing on Leisure Constraint Theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior, this study employs structural equation modeling to examine the key constraints on youth participation and test the mediating role of attitudinal perception. A questionnaire survey of 215 youth participants in Shenyang, China, provides the empirical basis for the analysis. Results indicated that intrapersonal, interpersonal, structural, and experiential constraints all negatively affect participation behavior. In contrast, attitudinal perception exerts a significant positive influence. Furthermore, these constraints collectively suppress youth participation indirectly by attenuating attitudinal perception, with structural constraints exhibiting the strongest mediation effect via this pathway. Notably, intrapersonal constraints not only intensify structural constraints by reinforcing interpersonal constraints, but also directly exacerbate them. This finding challenges the unidirectionality of hierarchical constraint models by revealing a bidirectional reinforcement loop: intrapersonal and structural constraints reciprocally amplify one another, bypassing constraint negotiation processes and suppressing participation intentions at their source. Based on these results, we draw out the theoretical and practical implications and suggest directions for future research.