Social Worlds And The Leisure Experience

Anselm Strauss observed 40 years ago that the idea of social world was suffering from weak conceptualization and application to those areas of social life where this formation figures prominently in everyday activities. This book provides a coherent statement about what social worlds consist of, what they do, where they fit in social theory.

"Leisure is everywhere, but its impact on people's lives is often overlooked. Leisure is more than “doing nothing” or “hanging out.” It has implications for society, affecting economics, politics, business, health, and the environment. On an individual level, it offers multiple opportunities for personal growth and development. And it contributes to a better quality of life for individuals and communities as a whole. With Dimensions of Leisure for Life: Individuals and Society, students will learn to understand and appreciate leisure and explore the ways that their leisure choices can help them lead happier, more balanced lives both now and in the future. ... With contributions from 22 leading professors, the book examines the following: the concept of leisure, including the various ways in which it has been defined and described, the benefits associated with it, the scope of the leisure industry field, and the basis for studying leisure as a social science; the impact of leisure on quality of life, health, physical activity and stress levels, and overall happiness and well-being; the social significance of leisure, including the interaction of leisure with history, contemporary society, technology, the environment, economics, and politics and public policy; the factors that influence each individual's leisure choices and level of involvement in leisure activities, such as awareness of local options, barriers of age, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, religion, or socioeconomic status, geographic distribution of leisure spaces; and maturity level and stage of development."--Publisher.

The Serious Leisure Perspective (SLP) is a theoretic framework developed by Robert A. Stebbins in 1973, that brings together three main forms of leisure known as serious leisure, casual leisure, and project-based leisure. The SLP has evolved considerably since 1973, and this textbook provides a synthesis of the many concepts and propositions, as well as the data supporting them. In this overview, Stebbins organizes the entire framework along conceptual lines, with careful attention to level of empirical support and validation of each concept, presenting an up-to-date version of the SLP that allows interested students and researchers of social psychology, sociology, and leisure studies, to pinpoint exact elements of the theory, the empirical base and its application.

Friendly social relations during free time, referred to here as leisure-based sociability, constitute a prominent reward of participation in groups based on voluntary membership, consisting for this review mainly of amateurs, hobbyists, volunteers, and their associations. This benefit is analyzed according to two subtypes: sociable nonprofit associations and social clubs. The goal of this issue of the Voluntaristics Review is to examine the leisure component of these two subtypes as framed in the serious leisure perspective (SLP), put nonprofit sociability in organizational context, and then review the empirical literature bearing on it. Excluded are the studies and theoretic treatises approaching nonprofit groups from another angle (e.g., organizational structure, management issues, funding sources, governmental regulation, type of employment). Specifically, this review centers on the relevant publications listed in the SLP website bearing on amateurs, hobbyists, and career volunteers (the serious pursuits), casual leisure, and project-based interests. It includes several extensions of the theory and research on leisure-related aspects of aging and retirement, arts and science administration, library and information science, positive psychology, therapeutic recreation and disability studies, and tourism and event analysis. Compared with the specialties in leisure studies, the SLP casts by far the broadest theoretical and empirical net in that interdisciplinary field. The research reviewed shows that such talk—generically known as socializing—reflects one or more of 14 themes. In general, members find sociability in these clubs and associations in and around the core activities they pursue there and on which the two subtypes have formed. The studies reviewed, taken together, provide considerable validation of the proposition that leisure-based sociability is a prominent reward of participating in a multitude of volunteer groups. Leisure-based sociability is essentially micro-analytic, but when viewed through the lens of the SLP, it can be further understood using meso and macro levels of analysis.

This short book discusses the relatively new concept of project-based leisure in leisure research, and relates it to individual and community well-being and quality of life. The book defines PBL as a short-term, reasonably complicated, one-off or occasional, though infrequent, creative undertaking carried out in free time, or time free of disagreeable obligation. Such leisure requires considerable planning, effort, and sometimes skill or knowledge. The book discusses how PBL contributes to subjective well-being, though doing so more modestly than serious leisure and occupational devotion. The book surveys existing field research of the author’s own and other studies, and provides original insights on how PBL activities can be used to generate community involvement and subjective well-being.

The study of consumption has never seriously examined the role of leisure. This ambitious, agenda-setting study, provides the most in-depth examination of the relationship between the two to date, drawing on the serious leisure perspective and outlining a new conceptual framework for analyzing consumption for leisure.

"This book, aimed primarily at college students who are studying leisure, addresses the multiple ways leisure impacts lives and our larger society"--

Acknowledging that the challenge facing social science is how to inject some order into the common-sense notion of leisure lifestyles, this book, written by a major player in the field of leisure, considers how to turn the study of both serious and casual leisure into a useful concept for guiding research.