Preferred Leisure Type,Value Orientations,and Psychological Well-Being Among East Asian Youth

ABSTRACT

This study investigated preferred leisure type and its associations with value orientations and psychological well-being (PWB) among adolescents in South Korea, China, and Japan (N = 6,157). Chi-square analyses were performed to examine differences in preferred leisure type (i.e., active vs. passive) across countries. Overall, adolescents preferred passive to active leisure. A series of logistic regressions showed that students who value religion (Japanese and Korean), community (Chinese), and same-sex friends (Chinese) were more likely to prefer active leisure. Furthermore, active leisure pursuit was associated with high PWB among adolescents in all three countries. Though some of the findings support previous studies suggesting cultural differences in leisure, values, and PWB, similar patterns were observed in the associations between variables among Korean, Chinese, and Japanese adolescents.     

The Problem of Motivation in Understanding the Demand for Leisure Day Visits

Abstract

Motivation for leisure travel has been an equivocal aspect of the study of leisure travel. Psychological theory has been useful providing conceptions of tourism motivation based on drives and needs, however, operational problems occur using attitude constructs which have varying degrees of predictive ability. This paper offers an alternative approach to the problems of motivation, taking a pheno-menological approach to the issues, using ethno-methodological techniques in a logical, sociologically grounded analysis of conversational interview data.     

Measuring the ABCs of Leisure Experience: Awareness,Boredom, Challenge,Distress

Abstract

The psychometric properties of four aspects of leisure experience (Awareness, Boredom, Challenge, Distress), originally identified and tested with adolescents, were investigated with college students. Findings indicated that the original subscales were internally consistent and could be applied, with minor modification, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, college major, or employment. Interrelationships among the four leisure constructs of Awareness, Boredom, Challenge, and Distress were found to vary as a function of both gender and ethnicity, yielding different profiles of African-American, Asian-American, European-American, and Hispanic-American male and female students.     

A Cross-Cultural/National Study of Canadian,Chinese, and Japanese University Students' Leisure Satisfaction and Subjective Well-Being

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to examine whether Canadian, Chinese, and Japanese university students' leisure satisfaction affected their subjective well-being (SWB) and, if so, how this process was similar and different cross-culturally/nationally. A series of stepwise multiple regressions indicated that, in general, satisfying leisure significantly and positively impacted SWB across all three cultures, but there were also differences between (a) Canada and both China and Japan in terms of aesthetic leisure satisfaction and (b) China and Japan in terms of psychological and physiological leisure satisfaction. Overall, our results suggest that while satisfying leisure significantly, positively, and substantively impacts SWB in both Western and East Asian cultural contexts, culture frequently influences which specific elements are pertinent. This cross-cultural/national study has important theoretical and practical implications for the currently Western-centric leisure literature and for the understanding of the different roles leisure plays in enhancing SWB across cultures, respectively.     

Family Leisure and Leisure Service Provision: Making the Case for Including Perspectives from Practice

ABSTRACT

Research over the last 20 years has contributed to the conceptualization and theorizing about family leisure. Missing from this body of knowledge has been research that focuses on the provision of family leisure programs and services that includes the perspectives of practitioners. Also missing from this research are the perspectives of those who engage in programs and services that have been designed for or offered to families. The first purpose of this article is to, through a discussion of the literature, demonstrate the potential value of engaging recreation and leisure agencies in research that advances knowledge about how family leisure is practiced in program and service contexts. The second purpose is to identify potential areas of inquiry that not only will contribute to advancing theory about family leisure but also support practice in delivering recreation and leisure programs and services for families.     

Relation between intrinsic motivation and boredom in leisure time

Abstract

The present investigation replicated and extended an earlier finding of the negative relation between intrinsic motivation in leisure behavior and boredom in leisure time (Iso‐Ahola & Weissinger, 1987). Secondary analysis of data from 474 college undergraduates was used to construct a regression model of boredom. Results indicate that the self‐determination component of intrinsic leisure motivation explained the greatest portion of boredom variance (R = .38). Other variables entering the regression equation, in descending order of variance explained: competence, leisure ethic, age, and leisure repertoire (total R² = .52). Gender was not a significant predictor of boredom in leisure time. Results suggest that boredom in leisure time is usefully conceptualized as a disruption of the intrinsic motivation process.     

“I Like My Peeps”: Diversifying the Net Generation's Digital Leisure

ABSTRACT

The current generation of adolescents is the first to have grown up with the widespread use of the internet as part of their everyday lives; they are the Net Generation. To diversify existing research on this generation's digital practices, this study explored the intersectional experiences of diverse immigrant adolescent girls' digital leisure. Conversational interviews with nine girls revealed that they encountered numerous interpersonal leisure constraints following their immigration to Canada. Within their digital leisure, girls were able to negotiate these constraints through online connections with family and friends back home, Canadian friends, and the global village. These online connections facilitated an expansion of social boundaries and communication with both familiar and broad networks to maintain and develop relationships, pursue interests, share culture, and resist limiting gendered norms with the unparalleled interactivity and sociability of digital leisure.     

Accessing leisure in an unfamiliar society via mobile instant messaging: A case study of academic sojourners visiting South Korea

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how academic sojourners, unfamiliar with the local language and culture, accessed casual leisure through mobile instant messaging during a short stay of one or two semesters in South Korea. Ninety-six English-speaking academic sojourners on Korean government scholarships covering tuition, room and board in exchange for contact with local university students seeking informal English language practice took part in this study. They represent a shift in academic sojourner mobility from outbound Asian students seeking language study in English-speaking countries to inbound English-speakers providing language support within Asia. Qualitative analysis revealed how casual leisure, the features of South Korea’s advanced digital environment and mobile instant messaging chat rooms coalesced. The findings show how local digital practices complement casual leisure access and how digital practices can become casual leisure despite limits in language ability and cultural understanding. It recommends further exploration of links between leisure, digital environments and mobile instant messaging in other research settings that are experiencing flows of globally mobile populations.     

Coastal blue space and wellbeing research: looking beyond western tides

ABSTRACT

In this paper we focus on coastal blue spaces and the ways in which they have been advocated as beneficial for health and wellbeing in the context of leisure practices. We offer a reassessment of some of the claims made in this growing body of literature, highlighting the diverse cultural practices at the coast across different geographical contexts, particularly for those communities that have experienced exclusion due to ethnicity, culture, and income. We then discuss conceptions of coastal blue space and wellbeing within the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, a bi-cultural nation in which indigenous knowledges connected to both wellbeing and leisure in the outdoor world are impacting dominant (white, colonial) discourses, policies and practices. We illustrate that a Māori world view embraces different practices and assumptions about what water means and how relationships with water are made including through leisure practices. Aotearoa New Zealand provides a revealing cultural context for re-assessing and indeed challenging Eurocentric assumptions about blue spaces as sites of wellbeing. More widely we suggest that it is timely to anchor blue space and wellbeing research to different ‘worlds’; that looking in to reach out and expanding research agendas is a useful and important enterprise.     

Asian North Americans' Leisure: A Critical Examination of the Theoretical Frameworks Used in Research and Suggestions for Future Study

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to critically examine the theoretical frameworks employed in the existing research on Asian North Americans' leisure and to offer insights into additional theories that might be used in future research on the topic. The study reviewed three major theoretical frameworks employed by previous research in the field of leisure studies: (1) assimilation and acculturation theory, (2) ethnicity-based theories, and (3) self-construal. The study also provides recommendations for alternative theoretical approaches that could be used in investigations of Asian North Americans' leisure, including racial discrimination and stereotyping, the multiple hierarchy stratification perspective, transnationalism, and cultural and social capital.     

Street Corner Society: Leisure Careers,Youth (Sub)culture and Social Exclusion

Abstract

This paper draws upon qualitative research with ‘socially excluded’ young people in the North East of England. It proposes that the concept and study of ‘leisure careers’ is useful in understanding the transitions, (sub)cultural experiences and identities of social groups like this. The empirical focus is upon the significance of leisure careers in the neighbourhood‐based, social networks of some criminally involved, socially excluded young adults. Theoretically, we argue that a focus on leisure careers, as part of a broad, holistic approach to youth transitions, can help overcome some of the problems that currently affect youth studies. In particular, fuller examination of shifting, leisure‐based activities and identities within studies of youth transition may help bridge the analytical divide between that tradition of youth research and that which focuses primarily on youth culture and identity.     

Entering the Minds of Serial Murderers: The Application of Forensic Leisure Science to Homicide Research

ABSTRACT

Years ago, a small handful of leisure scholars suggested that serial murder may be a form of leisure. However, to date this possibility remains virtually unexplored. This article draws from recent research to share reflections and rich, new insights on how leisure science may provide important contributions to serial homicide researchers and law enforcement personnel. At the same time, exploring such intersections offers leisure scholars new ways of understanding familiar concepts and theories. Possibilities for future research are discussed.     

Social differences in leisure behavior: Measurement and interpretation

This article examines how three major dimensions of leisure behavior, i.e., rates of leisure participation, money expenditure for leisure goods and services and discretionary time available for leisure pursuits, are distributed across various socio‐demographic and socio‐occupational groups. The money expenditures for leisure, it is argued, follow traditional class lines most closely; the rates of leisure participation are characterized by a more egalitarian distribution; and the amounts of leisure time are often inversely related to social centrality and social status. The article interprets these varying patterns of leisure inequalities as a function of the cumulative nature of leisure participation as opposed to the “finite” nature of leisure time, and as a reflection of the complex relationship between leisure, work, income, leisure class, and leisure status.     

Leisure motivation of people with physical and visual disabilities in Ghana

Leisure motivation is central to the provision of leisure services especially to marginalised groups such as disabled people who may have different interests from non-disabled people. Using cross-sectional data from 536 people with physical and visual disabilities, this study assessed the leisure motivations of disabled people in Ghana. The findings suggest that the motivations of people with visual and physical disabilities were fourfold, namely competence mastery, social, intellectual, and stimulus avoidance. The influence of social motivation varied across marital status and household size, while stimulus avoidance varied by type of disability, sex, and employment status. Competence mastery and intellectual motivation varied across sex and income levels. It was concluded that the leisure motivations of disabled people in this study are based on their personal circumstances; they are heterogeneous. The study recommends that research on leisure motivation should be conducted with reference to specific context and interpreted in relation to the individual’s circumstances.     

Leisure and antileisure in game play

Abstract

Leisure is often described as being intrinsically motivated and offering the element of choice. Although games are normally considered recreational or leisure activities, there are certain circumstances in which they take on qualities that are not only nonleisurelike (i.e., lacking in intrinsic motivation and choice) but are actually destructive to the leisure experience. It is suggested that certain aspects of game‐playing situations can destroy the leisurelike qualities of participation and result in abandonment of the activity. These aspects, which include social pressures to participate and conflicts that develop in the social and psychological environment of play, appear to erode intrinsic motivation and perceived freedom of choice.     

Exploring Relationships Between Physical Activity,Leisure Involvement,Self-Efficacy,and Motivation via Participant Segmentation

Research objectives were both applied and conceptual. Actionable segments of physical activity participants were developed using leisure involvement profiles. Also explored were links between leisure involvement, a construct primarily developed and applied in leisure literature, and psychological variables found to influence participation in physical activity literature. A community-based sample of 384 adults completed measures of five involvement facets and psychological, demographic, and behavioral variables. Cluster analysis revealed four groups: Extremely Involved, Quite Involved, Moderately Involved, and Marginally Involved. Scores for physical activity behavior, self-efficacy, motivations, and body mass index were most positive for the Extremely Involved, with a linear decline across the three remaining segments (p < .05). Few demographic between-group differences were found. The data suggest that leisure involvement provides an effective means of segmenting physically active leisure participants for purposes of research and health promotion, and that self-efficacy and motivation for physical activity were predictably linked to involvement.     

A revised paradigm of leisure choices

A theory‐based model distinguishing three kinds of leisure from required nonwork activity has been examined through research on adult leisure in three communities. In the research sequence, the defining dimension of relative freedom and constraint is found central to the perceptions of respondents, but the work‐relation dimension does not significantly differentiate types of leisure. The model is revised to replace work‐relation with meaning to the participant that is either intrinsic to doing the activity or primarily social. Further, anticipated satisfactions in building and maintaining relationships are found more salient in leisure choices than in meeting role expectations. The revised typology is employed to classify activities from the New Town phase of the research as (1) unconditional, (2) recuperative, (3) relational, and (4) role‐determined.     

The Influence of Confucianism on Women’s Leisure in Taiwan

Abstract

Confucian philosophy has traditionally had a considerable influence on many aspects of the lives of the Taiwanese people. It is therefore necessary to take this belief structure into account in order to explain Taiwanese women’s leisure perceptions and behaviours. The purpose of this study is to examine this issue. The factors that constrain women’s leisure in Taiwan are identified. These categories can be broadly termed economic, domestic, social, and cultural constraints     

Empowerment,Resistance, and Leisure among Latino Student Organizations

ABSTRACT

The goal of the study was to examine leisure, empowerment, and resistance among members of Latino student organizations. The study examined how the process of empowerment is being achieved and what roles leisure plays in the empowerment process. Focus groups were conducted with 26 representatives of four Latino student organizations on a campus of a large midwestern university. The findings showed that the empowerment was being achieved by helping students adjust to the university life and succeed in college, by strengthening their cultural heritage and teaching others about the Latino culture, and by helping local underprivileged communities. Leisure was used to foster bonds among group members, to showcase groups' cultural heritage, to make activities organized for others more attractive, and as a form of fundraising and attracting new members.     

The influence of leisure and travel experiences on the school enjoyment of adolescents: a panel analysis

ABSTRACT

This research note examines the influence of experiential activities and family travel experiences on the school enjoyment of adolescents by applying a panel regression analysis. The authors used data from the Korean Children & Youth Panel Survey (KCYPS) for data analysis and performed a one-way fixed effect regression and a feasible generalized least square (FGLS) regression analyses. The findings reveal that 1) higher levels of satisfaction in experiential activities could enable adolescents to better enjoy their school lives and 2) the frequency of family and group trips had a positive impact on adolescents’ school enjoyment. However, the frequency of experiential activities was negatively associated with adolescents’ school enjoyment. This research discusses the implications with regard to the influence of leisure and family travel experiences on the school enjoyment of adolescents based on the findings.