Leisure Education in Educational Settings : From Instruction to Inspiration

Abstract

Leisure education is a significant process for enhancing people’s quality of life. Underpinned by the perceived contrasting and yet complementing relationships between leisure and education, leisure education is advocated to be undertaken in educational settings. Rapid developments of trends in leisure patterns and perceptions together with a growing demand for schools to develop lifelong and life-wide learning and to facilitate learning for enjoyment have brought with them the need to further develop this process. Despite the growing advocacy for leisure education in schools, it has not been broadly implemented. The present paper examines the process of leisure education in schools, highlights the challenges associated with it and provides responses and implications for future directions. These relate to internal issues of curriculum planning and organization, teacher preparation and pedagogy and external issues of global changes and the impact of different socialization agents on children and adolescents’ leisure and development. t