Leisure Contexts Research Articles

Not Just Idle Time: Adolescents’ Developmental Experiences Provided by Structured and Unstructured Leisure Activities

AbstractInvestigation into positive youth development has led researchers to focus on the context of leisure as one that provides youth with opportunities to develop the skills and competencies desired for successful adulthood. This study surveyed 53 (14 males, 39 females, mean age 14.6) Western Australian high school students using an adapted version of the Youth Experience Survey (YES) 2.0. Participants were asked to report their perceived developmental experiences in both structured and unstructured activities across 2 domains: identity work and initiative development. Structured activities were found to offer adolescents more opportunities for the development of initiative than unstructured activities. In addition more adult involvement was found to be associated with higher levels of both identity work and initiative development experiences. No differences were found in developmental experiences between different structured activities. However comparisons among different unstructured activities suggest that some forms of unstructured leisure may be particularly beneficial to youth development Unstructured activities such as hobbies and unstructured sports offered adolescents more initiative and identity experiences than alternate unstructured activities such as media use and communication activities. Results are discussed in reference to theories of initiative development and the implications to the wider community.

Key factors for successful leisure and tourism public transport provision

In the second half of the 20th century, the main focus of transport policy and transport studies was on the reduction of the use of motorised, individual transport, in particular with regard to daily commuter traffic. The main concepts concentrated on creating an attractive public transport supply and, where possible, improving the infrastructure for non-motorized traffic in order to open up alternative forms of travel. Although these concepts produced noticeable effects on everyday travel, they could not cope with steadily rising problems in the field of leisure traffic. Therefore, primarily supply oriented, autocratic desktop transport policies cannot be seen as a promising approach within the leisure context. Consequently, the article focuses on the necessary key factors for successful leisure and tourism public transport provision. It stresses the need for rethinking transport policy by choosing a demand oriented approach and realising the importance of additional accompanying efforts in the areas of marketing, transparency and quality. Focusing on the demand side, with its individual attitudes and preferences, leads to a new understanding of traffic planning by adopting a bottom up, rather than a top down approach.

Young People's Leisure Contexts and their Relation to Adult Outcomes

Leisure activity plays a significant role in identity formation during the teens, both reinforcing previous developmental trends and shaping new ones. The context for leisure activity—youth club, church club, sports club, and so on—is important in signifying the probable social mix and interactions of the young people participating. This paper summarises findings from exploratory research using age-16 data from the 1970 British Birth Cohort Study (BCS70) to investigate the relation of age-16 leisure contexts to later adult outcomes, taking account of the family background and individual characteristics that predict participation in these contexts. Using logistic regression modelling, a range of binary outcome variables indicating experience of social exclusion at age 30 were regressed on variables measuring frequency of participation in different types of leisure activity, holding constant prior family circumstances and developmental characteristics. The analysis demonstrated the attraction of youth clubs, compared with other out-of-school activities, for young people with disadvantaged backgrounds and poor school achievement. Over and above these latter factors, youth club participation, compared with other forms of activity, was associated with increased probability of social exclusion outcomes, up to the age of 30, including lack of qualifications, unemployment, smoking, drinking, and crime. Other settings such as sports clubs and church clubs showed no associations of this kind or associations in the opposite direction. It was concluded that youth clubs are important settings for positive influence and inhibiting social exclusion processes, but more development of the provision in more structured directions is needed.

User interface evaluation of interactive TV: a media studies perspective

A diverse user population employs interactive TV (ITV) applications in a leisure context for entertainment purposes. The traditional user interface (UI) evaluation paradigm involving efficiency and task completion may not be adequate for the assessment of such applications. In this paper, we argue that unless ITV applications are evaluated with consideration for the ordinary TV viewer, they are going to be appropriate only for the computer literate user, thus excluding the TV audience from easy access to information society services. The field of media studies has accumulated an extensive theory of TV and associated methods. We applied the corresponding findings in the domain of ITV to examine how universal access to ITV applications can be obtained. By combining these results with emerging affective quality theories for interactive products, we propose a UI evaluation framework for ITV applications.

Sport and Leisure as Contexts for Fathering in Australian Families

The relationships that fathers have with their family in leisure contexts are reflected in their leisure and sport repertoires and identities. Family‐based leisure relationships are one significant mode through which they express connectedness with their children. This article builds on feminist studies of gendered leisure relations in families, and rejects approaches that conflate mothers’ and fathers’ experiences and meanings of family leisure into that of ‘parents’. In contrast it focuses on fathers’ gendered experience of family leisure to further our understanding of what ‘playing’ with children means in relation to the identity construction of fatherhood. It considers the nexus between fathers’ own leisure and sport repertoires, their understanding of their children’s identities and leisure needs, and their involvement in shared family leisure and their children’s leisure and sport activities. This article is based on a larger qualitative study of mothers, fathers and children in 28 Australian families. Both parents in each family were interviewed about their leisure involvements, children’s leisure activities and what they felt was the meaning and importance of family leisure. At least one child 10 years and older in each family was also interviewed. In addition a seven‐day diary was also used by parents (most usually mothers) to record the leisure activities of all family members prior to the interviews. Four themes emerged in the analysis of the interviews with fathers in the study. These themes were: the importance for fathers of being with children and doing leisure as a family; the family paradigm and fathering through the generations; sport as a dominant but not the only cultural context for fathering; and other leisure contexts in which non‐sporting fathers construct their fatherhood identity. The study suggests the possibility that for some Australian fathers, sport and leisure contexts as both physical and social spaces enable men to do the identity work of being an involved or ‘generative’ (i.e. guiding the next generation) father.

Toward a critical examination of social capital within leisure contexts: From production and maintenance to distribution

Perhaps because of the normative foundations upon which our field was built, leisure researchers have focused on social capital at the group level with a particular emphasis on how communities of interest develop and more or less maintain social capital as a collective asset. In so doing, they have tended to concentrate on the positive externalities associated with social capital production. This approach to examining social capital in leisure contexts ignores the egocentric properties of social capital and implies incorrectly that social capital can be appropriated equally by all members of a social network. While social capital does represent resources embedded in social relations, the access and use of such resources ultimately reside with the individual. The uncritical acceptance within our field that social capital is a positive dimension in building community capacity fails to appreciate that members of a social network have differential access to social capital by virtue of their social position within that network. The individual returns of social capital are often (maybe even usually) distributed unevenly. With this recognition, the author calls on leisure researchers to focus on inequalities in access to social capital that result from what Lin (2001) referred to as a capital deficit or return deficit. Correspondingly, leisure researchers are challenged to pay greater attention to what Foley, Edwards, and Diani (2001) termed “use‐value,” that is, how appropriable social capital really is. Only by concentrating on the actual distribution of social capital can leisure researchers begin to de‐essentialize the relational ties developed in leisure contexts and the benefits accrued through them.

The Relationship Between School-Leisure Conflict and Educational and Mental Health Indexes: A Motivational Analysis

The purpose of the present study was to test a motivational model that explains the relationship between school-leisure conflict and indicators of educational functioning and mental health using structural equation modeling with a sample of college students. Results provided support for the proposed model. Experiencing a conflict between education and leisure contexts was negatively predicted by having a self-determined motivation for school, while self-determined motivation for leisure activities was unrelated to the experience of such a conflict. A school-leisure conflict, in turn, was associated with poorer academic consequences (poor concentration at school, academic hopelessness, few intentions of pursuing in school), which were associated with higher levels of depression and low life satisfaction. Importantly, the proposed theoretical model was supported for both men and women. Results are discussed in terms of self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 1991, 2000) and the hierarchical model of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Vallerand, 1997).

Examining College Students’ Participation in the Leisure Pursuits of Drinking and Illegal Drug Use

Much of the research over the last decade has focused on the “benefits of leisure.” However, there is another side of leisure that has received much less attention. For example, drinking and illegal drugs are popular leisure activities for many college students, yet leisure researchers have paid scant attention to such pursuits even though these activities often take place during leisure time and in a leisure context. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to address this gap in the leisure literature by examining college students’ participation in two leisure pursuits, drinking and illegal drug use. We examined their behavior within two potential explanatory theories, differential association and casual leisure, in hopes that we might identify a particularly salient theoretical framework for a leisure perspective on these timely and socially relevant issues.

‘The first step is the two‐step’: hegemonic masculinity and dancing in a country‐western gay bar

Gay men are often rendered feminized males according to masculine, heterosexual ideologies. This research demonstrates that gay men are actually more creative and active agents in their gender performance, simultaneously resisting and reinforcing dominant ideologies around gender and sexuality. One context where the creative agency of gay men is readily prevalent is in their leisure. Leisure contexts, used to shift the goalposts of cultural domination, are important locations where both social control of individuals and social strategies for change are prevalent. Using ethnographic methods, the author investigated a country‐western gay bar to identify those practices that reveal how gay men shape and assign meaning to the bar as a leisure context, the structures that exist to facilitate and/or prohibit gendered practices, and how gay men negotiate hegemonic and counter‐hegemonic gendered practices. This paper focuses on two‐step dancing, the most visible and popular activity that occurs in this country‐western gay bar. Yet, despite its popularity, analysis and interpretation reveal that two‐stepping, a heterosexually based, gender‐defined activity, provides gay men with a unique recreational opportunity to both challenge and reinforce dominant gender and sexual ideologies.

Discrimination in the Social Context of Leisure: A Response

Discrimination in the Social Context of Leisure: A Response

Visualizing Leisure

This essay defines the visual approach through a review of leisure-related literature and draws insights from scholars across the social sciences. Visual leisure is the collection of several approaches to research that recognizes the relevance of vision to ways we make sense of leisure in our lives. It is not about more data or incremental advancement, but on providing a different kind of data that repositions research questions in ways that verbal or numeric information are not able to do. Visual leisure has tremendous potential to democratize research through an expanded accessibility of data, an enhanced transparency of argument, and an empowerment of lay people in research-based policy and planning processes. Problems with both visual literacy and representation of leisure contexts are developed as central motivations for producing this special issue.

Why a leisure context is linked to normbreaking for some girls and not others: personality characteristics and parent–child relations as explanations

In a study of adolescents in the 1970s, girls were high in normbreaking if they attended youth recreation centers and were heavily involved with peers or boys (Stattin et al., 2003). The present study investigated whether these results could be replicated on a modern sample, and then examined parent–child relationships and personality characteristics as explanations why some girls and not others go to the youth centers and become heavily involved with peers and boys. Participants were 1279 14-year olds from a city in central Sweden. The results showed that personality characteristics and experiences at home partly explained youth center attendance, and personality characteristics partly explained involvement with boys, but neither explained why those who attended the centers and were involved with boys were highest on normbreaking. Thus, personality characteristics and experiences at home seem to be involved when girls choose the youth center context, but socialization by peers at the centers might better explain normbreaking among center goers.

“Being a ‘Doer’ Instead of a ‘Viewer’”: The Role of Inclusive Leisure Contexts in Determining Social Acceptance for People with Disabilities

The purpose of this study was to conduct an in-depth examination of the perceptions of people with disabilities on social acceptance and inclusive leisure contexts. Specifically, this study explored the role of leisure contexts in determining social acceptance for individuals with disabilities participating in inclusive recreation programs. Individuals with disabilities (n = 14) who were enrolled in inclusive leisure programs were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. Using constant comparative methods to analyze data, three categories identified, (a) connector (bridging barriers), (b) distancer (emphasizing differences), and (c) neutralizer (ambivalence toward inclusion). These findings are important as they appear to reflect a microcosm of society relative to inclusion values, norms, and practices.

Resistance and Empowerment through Leisure: The Meaning of Competitive Sport Participation to Older Adults

It is well established that the developed world’s population is aging. This trend has influenced increased scholarly and media interest into the benefits of leisure, sport and physical activity in later life, as well as an explosion of sporting events for mature athletes. However, the lack of qualitative research pertaining to older peoples’ experiences in competitive sport is surprising. The purpose of this article is twofold: first, to present the qualitative findings of a study that explores the meaning of competitive sport participation to a group of older adults, and second, to examine their meanings within a broader socio-cultural context. Data were collected through participant-observation and semi-structured interviews with competitors (aged 55 to 94 years) at the 8th Australian Masters Games in 20013. The findings were analyzed using strategies consistent with both constant comparative and thematic analyses. The three major themes emerging from the data suggest that competitive sport provides a leisure context for older people to resist the negative factors associated with older age at the individual, interpersonal or shared level, and gain a sense of personal empowerment, regardless of their motive for participation.

Aesthetics of leisure—disciplining desire

This paper critically reflects upon the nature and significance of aesthetics and its multiple representations within leisure. The paper focuses upon one specific leisure context, the health club environment, and presents a critique of aesthetics within the discursive context of modernity and postmodemity. The paper outlines the emerging territory of aesthetics (Nickson et al, 2000; Van Maanen, 1990; Witz et al, 1998; Du Gay, 1996) and challenges its notion as a passive entity, instead suggesting that aesthetics resides within a ‘society of signs’ (Rojek 1995) or ‘regime of signs’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1984) with inscriptive and territorializing tendencies. The contention here is that the health club environment services and supports such a society in its construction, reaffirmation, maintenance and reactivation of desire. Desire (Nietzsche, 1967; Foucault 1984; Deleuze and Guattari 1984; Megill 1987) is intrinsically linked to the aestheticisation process as exemplified in the search for the body image of the ‘other’ (Fox 1993; Foucault 1984). However, this paper argues that this quest for the ‘other’ establishes a process of regulation and surveillance of the self, resulting in a continual dissatisfaction of desire alluded to through the metaphor of travel. Moreover, it is suggested that a paradox exists within the health club environment, reflecting both discourses of modernity and postmodernity. Modernity is represented in the rationalised body process and its deferral within a techno-centric/dependency culture. The postmodern discourse is represented in a consumer culture of instant gratification, where identity is transmuted through the sign.

Leveraging Subculture and Identity to Promote Sport Events

In order to increase the number of visitors attracted to sport events, organisers have sought to broaden their appeal by adding to the range of consumption options their events provide. This is typically done by expanding the tangible product or by adding augmentations. These expansions and augmentations provide useful bases for event promotions if the nature of benefits derived and the segments to whom those benefits appeal are identified. The key to identifying benefits and segments is to examine customers’ relationships to the subculture of the sport being showcased. Recent research suggests that consumers’ enjoyment of sport events derives, at least in part, from their identification with the sport's subculture. This is consistent with other work in consumer behaviour demonstrating the importance of subculture in transmitting consumption values, particularly in leisure contexts. Recent research into three events – the Key West Women's Flag Football Tournament, the Gold Coast Marathon, and the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix – highlights the utility of leveraging event consumers’ identification with the sport's subculture when promoting sport events. Implications and recommendations for event management and marketing are reviewed.

Leisure in the Identity Formation of Lesbian/Gay Youth: Personal, but Not Social

The purpose of this qualitative, retrospective study was to examine leisure as a context for identity formation among young people (aged 18?22) who self-identified as lesbian/gay while in high school. Phenomenology was the theoretical framework that guided the conceptualization, interviews, and data analysis for this study. Ten participants from the southeastern United States were asked to reflect on their experiences of leisure and the ways in which leisure contexts helped them to negotiate their understanding of themselves and their relationships with others. Although the purpose of the study was not to develop a global, explanatory model about lesbian/gay youth, leisure, and identity, we did, nevertheless, develop overarching themes that describe and grounded theory that explains the role of leisure in the process of identity formation in the lives of these participants. The four themes?reading myself, seeing myself: media consumption; playing myself: sports; and expressing myself: music?led to the conclusion that the influence of leisure contexts in terms of the integration of personal and social identity formation was mitigated by the extent to which young people felt the need to conceal their sexual identity.

Leisure Context, Parental Control, and Resistance to Peer Pressure as Predictors of Adolescent Partying and Substance Use: An Ecological Perspective

Using an ecological model we explored factors that contributed to the amount of time adolescents spent partying and consequent substance use. This study derived from secondary data analysis on self-report data collected on a sample of students from nine high schools. Of the approximately 9,000 students present during questionnaire administration, about 8,000 provided usable data for this study. Multiple regression analyses suggested that if adolescents perceived low levels of parental monitoring and associated with peers who used substances, they were more likely to use substances themselves. The results also suggested that spending time in unstructured social settings predicted substance use, but this process was mediated by partying. Furthermore, adolescents who spent time in unstructured social settings spent more time partying, but only if their friends were perceived to value partying and were substance users. Similarly, adolescents who spent time partying were at heightened risk for substance use, but only if they reported themselves to be open to peer influence. Thus, hanging out, a common social leisure context, does not necessarily lead to partying, and parties do not automatically lead to alcohol or drug use. In various ways, peers and resistance to peer pressure moderate these effects.

Confidence in personality impressions of others in leisure and work contexts: The role of implicit theories of leisure as expressive behaviour

A person perception experiment was conducted to examine people's confidence in their personality impressions of others engaged in leisure compared to work contexts. University students (99 females and 87 males) between the ages of 18 and 45 (M =21.8) assessed the personality of a male or female target person shown engaging in four different activities in photographs that were labelled either work or leisure. Participants’ (perceivers') perceptions of the target's intrinsic motivation, confidence in their assessments, and leisure and work attitudes were measured. ANOVA and regression analyses determined that work attitudes moderated the context‐confidence relationship. Perceivers for whom work was highly central in their lives were equally confident of their personality assessments of targets in both work and leisure contexts. Perceivers for whom work was less central had greater confidence in their personality impressions of a target person engaging in leisure than in work. Structural equation modelling confirmed that for these latter participants, targets engaged in leisure contexts were perceived to be more intrinsically motivated, which fully mediated the influence of context on confidence. The findings suggest that the implicit theories people have about work and leisure can influence their confidence in the personality impressions they form of others engaged in leisure.

Three generations: oral testimonies on crime and social change in London's East End

This article compares, through the use of oral testimonies, the experiences of crime and social change of three generations of East Enders. Those aged 75 and older spoke about the period before the second world war; those in their mid fifties to early sixties about their experiences in the 1950s and early 1960s; those aged between 25 and 35 testified about the period between the late 1970s and the early 1990s. Each generation was asked not only about their experiences of victimization and/or involvement in committing offences, but also about the factors and relationships that acted as controls on crime. The testimonies suggest that different experiences of, and attitudes towards, crime of the different generations is related to the changing contexts of family life, community ties, leisure, economic prospects, social and cultural expectations and peer relationships.