Family Activity Model: Crossroads of Activity Environment and Family Interactions in Family Leisure

ABSTRACT

This article proposes the Family Activity Model (FAM) that integrates the previous work of Orthner's theoretical constructs of joint and parallel activities with Zabriskie and McCormick's constructs of core and balance experiences. FAM includes two dimensions of family experiences: activity environment and family interaction. Activity environment refers to the degree of novelty in the environment, while family interaction refers to the degree of social interaction among family members. These dimensions include objective and subjective elements of experiences. As a result of these orthogonal dimensions, four categories were developed providing a more nuanced understanding of family experiences: core-joint, core-parallel, balance-joint, and balance-parallel. The broader implications of using the FAM are discussed for researchers and practitioners.