Don Dawson

Purposive Leisure: Examining Parental Discourses on Family Activities

Current social psychological definitions of leisure may not adequately capture or describe family leisure. This study used discourse analysis to explore the meanings of family leisure as revealed by parents of preteen children (aged 10-12 years). The data came from a study of 31 families (23 two-parent families and 8 one-parent families) living in Ontario, Canada. Thirty mothers and 23 fathers were interviewed about their family leisure activities, experiences, attitudes, and beliefs about family participation. Analysis showed that family participation was highly valued by all of the parents. However, rather than being freely chosen or intrinsically motivated, family leisure was purposive in that it was organized and facilitated by parents in order to achieve particular short- and long-term goals. One set of goals related to family functioning, including enhanced family communication and cohesion, and a strong sense of family. Another set of goals related to the beneficial outcomes of family activities for children, including learning about healthy lifestyles as well as learning moral values. It is argued that the purposive nature of this form of leisure practice reflects current ideologies about motherhood, fatherhood, and the family in North American society.

Objective and Subjective Constraints on Women's Enjoyment of Leisure

Abstract Recognizing the male bias in previous leisure theory and research, feminist researchers have introduced new conceptualizations to address the gender-based issues of womens entitlement to leisure and the particularized nature of constraints to their leisure. Concepts of the “common world” of women, an “ethic of care” for others and a lack of a “sense of entitlement” to leisure have been useful to explain the ways in which womens experience of leisure is constrained in both external and internal ways. This study measures the separate effects of objective (i.e. external) and subjective (i.e. internal) constraints on the leisure enjoyment of women. Objective and subjective items were constructed for twelve categories of constraints on leisure and were included in a mailed survey of the adult women in Ontario. More than half the sample indicated experiencing an equal or greater number of subjective rather than objective constraints. The most frequently reported objective constraints were time, respo...

Leisure and the definition of poverty

How a society defines and subsequently measures poverty has a considerable impact on the way in which the poor are viewed by people in general and how the problem of poverty is approached by the state. This paper examines the conceptual role played by leisure in the definition of poverty in modern society. Earlier attempts to define and measure poverty did not consider leisure at all. Later inquiries tended to conceive of poverty as a relative phenomenon which could be understood only in the context of particular societies. More recent efforts have often included leisure as an essential category in the description and definition of the term. This paper traces the evolution of the concept of poverty and reveals the increasing conceptual importance of leisure in its definition. In conclusion, a style of living approach to the definition of poverty is discussed.

Social class in leisure: Reproduction and resistance

Abstract This paper examines some of the recent literature dealing with the role of leisure in capitalist society. Two related theoretical themes are discussed: the role of leisure in the reproduction of class inequalities and leisure as a site of resistance against capitalist cultural forms. Some authors argue that the processes of working class leisure can be seen to contribute to their own subordination as well as the reproduction of capitalist class relations. However, self‐produced patterns of working class leisure can lead to resistance to such reproduction. Thus, social class relations and inequalities, it is argued, can never be completely reproduced in the leisure sphere.

“For the most part, it's not fun and games.” Homelessness and Recreation

Abstract Homelessness is a persistent problem even in wealthy nations. Shelters for the homeless and aligned service agencies attempt to go beyond simply providing temporary housing and try to help their clients secure some measure of stability in their lives and to ultimately enable them to escape homelessness. Increasingly, recreation is seen as a means of assisting the homeless to cope with their condition, to improve the quality of their lives, to maintain affiliations within their communities and to provide encouragement and initiative. To illustrate the extent to which recreation services are available to the homeless, a survey of over a hundred shelters across Canada was conducted. Most shelters offer a variety of recreation opportunities to their clients, ranging from swimming and bowling to cards. These activities take place in community recreation centres, commercial venues or in the shelters themselves. Shelters hope that recreation participation will serve to counter the demoralizing effects o...

Leisure and social class: Some neglected theoretical considerations

Abstract Although a few social historians have recently dealt with several aspects of leisure and social class, the topic remains largely neglected in the field of leisure studies. This paper critically evaluates the dominant school of thought in leisure studies with regard to its treatment of the work/leisure relationship. Subsequently, several neo‐Marxist and neo‐Weberian approaches that place class, culture, and leisure in important analytical roles are discussed. Specifically, it is proposed that leisure can be seen to play a role in the formation of class structure, the closure between classes, class dominance, and class reproduction.

Balancing academic and athletic time management : A qualitative exploration of first year student athletes’ university football experiences

Abstract Participation in a varsity athletic program requires a great amount of time and effort to meet the demands of practices, meetings, training, film sessions and games, thus adding extra stressors to first-year students trying to integrate into university life in general. These time commitments may reduce a student athlete’s academic engagement and, therefore, negatively affect one’s academic success. The purpose of this study is to identify the challenges of time management identified by first-year varsity athletes. The phenomenological qualitative approach was used to analyze the data collected from in-depth interviews conducted with 12 first-year football players at a Canadian university. The results indicated that : (1) time spent participating in football-related activities influenced the amount of time which could be spent engaging in academics; (2) the management of one’s time emerged as the most difficult aspect of being a member in the university’s football program; (3) football commitments occupied so much time during the season making it difficult to find time for other activities such as studying, working on assignments, eating properly, or getting enough sleep; and, (4). the university’s looser academic structure and the free time between courses (compared secondary schools) poses a considerable time management challenge, one that may be mitigated by the highly-structured football program.

ON THE ANALYSIS OF CLASS AND LEISURE

ABSTRACT It has become almost common wisdom that ones leisure activities are relatively unrelated to ones occupational experiences. A resultant trend in leisure theory and research is to avoid classifying persons according to occupational groups or economic class. Moreover, the notion of the modern “mass” or classless (atomistic) society has lead to thinking of leisure in individualistic rather than collective terms. II is also true that many overly deterministic and mechanistic neo-marxist class models of society relegate the non-economic aspects of social life, including leisure, to a passive role of little analutical significance. The foregoing have, apparently, discouraged many theoreticians and researchers in the field of leisure from pursuing class analyses. This paper will two models of society which place class, culture and leisure in important analytical roles. These two analytical models include the “class hegemony” perspective and a «structural marxist» approach.

Leisure, the local state and the welfare state: a theoretical overview.

Abstract Until recently much of the study of local public leisure services in the U.S.A., Canada and the U.K. has not dealt systematically with the role played by the local state within the welfare state. The role of the local state with respect to leisure is, of course, pivotal in that it is at that level that the bulk of public leisure services are delivered. Moreover, given that state intervention in leisure is an increasingly accepted aspect of the welfare state, the role of the local state within the welfare state is crucial to any understanding of public leisure policies and programmes. Hence, it is argued that a more theoretically informed analysis of public leisure ought to be concerned with models of the local state and the relationship of the local state to the central welfare state. Toward this end, a review of liberal, neo-weberian, and neo-marxist models of the local state is undertaken. This is followed by an attempt to align these models with compatible theoretical approaches to the welfare...

THE RATIONAL SUBORDINATION OF WOMEN'S LEISURE UNDER PATRIARCHAL CAPITALISM

ABSTRACT This paper advances the particular interpretation that the rationalization of both work and social life under industrialization throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth century has had profound consequences for the leisure or women. Just as women have traditionally played a secondary role in the work force, it was “rational” that their leisure should also be secondary to mens leisure. In industrial capitalism women have less leisure space and time than do men. Also, the quality of womens leisure experience is often inferior to that of mens in that “womens work is never done”. Moreover, in the patriarchal society of Western capitalism men can be seen to have restricted the participation of wives and daughters in public leisure. Working class women may be seen to face a double burden under patriarchal capitalism as they experience both capitalist exploitation and patriarchal subordination. As a result, working class women would seem to constitute a most disadvantaged group with respect ...