A “Safe Place” for Leisure and Learning—The Girl Guides of Canada

Abstract

Abstract This paper endeavours to bring together a number of issues in relation to women's experience of leisure and education through the study of a group rarely mentioned in the literature, the Girl Guide/Girl Scout movement. It has been noted in the literature that leisure is often difficult for women to define. There are no clear boundaries demarcating work, education, and leisure within the context of women's everyday lives. Therefore, this paper offers an interdisciplinary approach in the sense that it focuses particularly on the intersections of these domains in the lives of the women who volunteer their time as Girl Guide leaders, or “Guiders.” Through an ethnographic study consisting of over sixty interviews with Girl Guides, Guiders and staff, we may come to a better understanding of these intersections as the girls and women talk about Girl Guides as a “safe place” for both leisure and learning.