Serious Leisure as an Avenue for Nurturing Community |
| |
| Authors: | Karen Gallant Susan Arai Bryan Smale |
| |
| Institution: | 1. School of Health and Human Performance , Dalhousie University , Halifax , NS , Canada;2. Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies , University of Waterloo , Waterloo , ON , Canada |
| |
| Abstract: | Using a communitarian framework to explore relationships between individuals and community, survey research was used to examine relationships among volunteers’ personal value orientations of individualism and collectivism, experiences of volunteering as serious leisure, and perceptions of sense of community and social cohesion. Based on survey responses from 300 current volunteers at ten voluntary organizations, findings linked collectivism and individualism to serious leisure, which in turn strongly associated with sense of community and social cohesion. In these empirical findings, serious leisure emerged as a pathway for nurturing community. |
| |
| Keywords: | collectivism individualism sense of community serious leisure social cohesion volunteering |
|
|
