John Tower

University and community partnerships: building social capital and community capacity

Higher education has great capacity to build ongoing partnerships with community groups to address a range of issues associated with social disadvantage. In early 2004, Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia, established a Community Engagement Working Party to clarify the principles and objectives underpinning the university’s approach to community engagement. As a result of that process a new Learning in the Workplace and Community (LiWC) policy was established and is now a key feature of all teaching programmes at Victoria University in vocational education and higher education. LiWC provides a good opportunity to develop partnerships that will be ongoing and developmental. The aim of this paper is to discuss the unique partnership between a community centre and a university that would see, in 2009, over 100 students from eight different disciplines across the university working in teams, on projects and individually with young people in the heart of Melbourne’s west as a part of their own undergraduate course work. A case study approach has been used to explore the features of the partnership, which has produced educational and community outcomes. This partnership evidences the important role that a university can play in partnering community change, building the capacity of the teaching programmes among their own students and staff and building social capital in a community.

Setting the scene for the World Leisure Journal special edition on leisure management

ABSTRACT This article sets the scene for the range of issues that could be addressed in the World Leisure Journal special edition on leisure management. The management and delivery of leisure programmes and services is the foundation of community leisure. Leisure management textbooks provide guidelines and direction for leisure programme delivery but there is limited research about how leisure programmes and services are delivered and evaluated. This paper provides a summary of a range of considerations about leisure management and community leisure programmes and services. After decades of leisure services delivery, there is still a need for public leisure managers to provide a rationale for why they deliver services. Five legitimations based on health, socialization, economic impact, community development and national identity provide a further consideration for what needs to be better understood about leisure management.

Development of a Scale to Measure Social Capital in Recreation and Sport Clubs

ABSTRACT Social capitals measurement has been limited and an effective scale is needed. This research employed focus groups and interviews and a panel of experts to provide understanding and items for a social capital scale in sport and recreation setting. After a pilot study the Club Social Capital Scale (CSCS) was completed by 1,079 members of sport and recreation clubs. This 42-item scale included the factors trust, friendship, acceptance, reciprocity, norms, and governance. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in a 20-item four component (governance, norms, friendship-acceptance, and trust-reciprocity) CSCS. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the potential four or five factor model and the hierarchical structure. The CSCS is the first psychometrically developed instrument to measure the factors underlying social capital rather than its outcomes. It can inform policy makers or sport and recreation administrators to establish baseline social capital in their organization and the efficacy of interventions or changes in policy.

Leisure management: all about the “what” and the “who”

The catalyst for the production ofWorld Leisure Journal’s (WLJ)LeisureManagement (LM) Special Issue came out of the LeisureManagement Commission’s conversations at the 2014 WLO Congress in Mobile Alabama. There were about six colleagues who shared ideas and updated each other about the leisure management issues that we wanted/needed to address through the activities of the LM Commission. It was clear to us at the time that there was scope to include more about leisure management in future WLO Congress programmes and to contribute more to WLJ’s content. The task of producing the LM Special Edition was embraced by Jo An and John to help provide a focus for the LM Commission and to address a perceived gap in some of the scholarly leisure literature. The call for papers for the LM Special Edition was released in late 2015 so it is particularly rewarding to see the outcome of that initiative with five articles from around the world that address issues about leisure management. Tower and Zimmermann (2016) set the context for the special edition by inviting submissions about scholarly and empirical contributions, systematic reviews and reports that would further the understanding of how leisure management improves communities’ quality of life. Our analysis identified limited publications in scholarly leisure journals that focused on leisure management and there was even less focus on community/non-profit and government services (except parks) where much of the community leisure programmes are delivered. There was a need to provide more insights about community leisure programmes, services and facilities to assist in service provision (Tower & Zimmermann, 2016). Leisure management is about delivering the services that meet the leisure needs of individuals and communities. If leisure managers do their jobs effectively, then the communities around the globe will have better opportunities to increase their quality of life. This LM Special Edition delivers articles that explain how leisure managers are addressing communities’ leisure needs.