A Rejoinder to Reviewers' Comments

Abstract

It is with satisfaction, and trepidation, that we engage in dialogue with the likes of Hobson Bryan, Walt Kuentzel, and Bonita McFarlane. Collectively, their respective works on recreational specialization have contributed much to our understanding of leisure behavior, particularly outdoor recreation behavior. Bryan's groundbreaking work on recreational specialization among anglers and fly fishermen laid a foundation for subsequent exploration of within-activity differences. His works in 1977 and 1979 spawned dozens of studies, theses and doctoral dissertations, and scholarly articles appearing in journals, conference proceedings, and books. Kuentzel's work on paddlers, hunters, and sailors shown us that different dimensions of recreational specialization have varying degrees of association with one another and that these dimensions do not correlate with other aspects of recreational involvement in a consistent manner. Finally, McFarlane's work on birdwatchers may be the most complete study conducted to date, using the recreational specialization framework, that seeks to determine the number of participants within a given leisure social world who embody particular styles of involvement. In this brief rejoinder, we will limit our remarks primarily to what we see are opportunities for additional research that stem from our distinguished colleagues' comments. Our three reviewers agreed that leisure researchers needed to conceive specialization as a process that entails change over time. In her comments, McFarlane noted that past research on recreational specialization has focused on quantifying the 'amount' of specialization individual possesses. Studies, in fact, have treated recreational specialization as a condition that characterizes people's involvement at a given point in time. An argument could be made that researchers, we included, have actually measured involvement and commitment rather than specialization. Our major objective was to rethink what recreational specialization means and how we should go about studying it. We believe that specialization is a process that entails a progression in how recreationists participate in and view the activity over time. Hence, our conception of recreational specialization is based on the idea that people's involvement changes over time as reflected by a focusing of behavior, the acquisition of skills and knowledge, and the tendency to become so committed to the activity that it becomes a central life interest. While we advocated the use of longitudinal data, we agree with McFarlane that qualitative research designs, which study participants at different stages of involvement, are well suited to helping us understand the factors that facilitate and constrain specialization. In his comments, Kuentzel provided valuable insight into the different career trajectories facing leisure participants. He made the case that modernity and commercialization of leisure have created a diversity of opportunities, which may actually encourage people to sample activities rather than specialize. We agree completely with this point and wrote the article with the understanding that specialization is not a typical career course that characterizes people's involvement in leisure activities. As we noted, many individuals may choose to participate in a wide range of leisure activities at any given point during their life. Such individuals may actually scoff at performance standards and codes of ethics embraced by specialists and social world insiders. Future research needs to establish the extent to which people choose to specialize in activities. Studies may reveal that experimenting (or sampling), dabbling, and other styles of involvement better describe people's leisure in modern society than does recreational specialization. Kuentzel also noted that a multiplicity of leisure opportunities is likely to generate various participation trajectories within a given leisure social world, which means that progress is unlikely to be directed toward an ultimate pre-established objective. …