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This paper examines the narratives of three deceased high-altitude mountaineers who lost their lives while climbing in the Greater Himalaya. These individuals were participants in part of a larger ethnographic study on 'Tourism in the Death Zone' conducted over the space of 150 days fieldwork in Pakistan and Nepal in 2019. The paper seeks to explore how these participants depth of immersion in the 'social world' of high-altitude mountaineering eventually lead to their deaths. To do so, the phenomenological concept of the lifeworld [lebenswelt] is utilized to show how the participants lived realities and aspirations became entwined with high-altitude mountaineering – a serious leisure community. Previously, the connection between the lifeworld and serious leisure viewed within the context of extreme risk taking and possible death, has not been explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how death is represented in the popular Netflix television series Squid Game. While death is an overarching theme in this series, there is one feature of its storytelling that sets it apart from other fictional deadly games' televisual or cinematic franchises. Indeed, Squid Game depicts players implicitly consenting to die if they lose the game. This narrative is centered on the deep vulnerabilities that come from social inequalities and create conditions in which death can be staged as merchandise to be sold or bought for entertainment purposes. This paper describes and analyzes how the implicit consent to death was portrayed as the ultimate outcome of social inequalities, as a commodity, and as an object of leisure. We will conclude the paper by discussing the implications of exposure to this discourse during leisure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Such self-surveillance is often presented as a necessary tradeoff between security and privacy; but this presentation may be a false dichotomy where both outcomes are possible (Lyon, [24]), although unlikely under surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, [38]). For Foucault, some of this rise in surveillance was coincidental with the decline of more obvious state-sanctioned physical punishments (i.e., torture, corporal punishment, execution), but was enacted to maintain a more subtle (but nonetheless effective) dominance of the state. Invoking Marx's notion of alienation (from the self, from others, from production), surveillance capitalism is characterized by asymmetrical personal data accumulation by companies, organizations, and governments that undertake "unexpected and illegible mechanisms of extraction and control that exile persons from their own behavior" (Zuboff, [37], p. 85). "The Fatal Coupling of Race, State, and Research on Disparities" is a conceptual paper from Sene-Harper and Outley ([33]) that examines if and how researchers contribute to the State surveillance apparatus, and the impact on race relations and disparities in the United States. [Extracted from the article]

This Special Issue centralizes powerful leisure stories that may otherwise be understood as myths—sometimes recognized, often less so—that circulate in the field, and beyond. In everyday use, a myth perpetuates a popularly held belief that is false or untrue. However, in social and cultural theory, myths are more complex, as partial truths that privilege particular versions of a shared social reality. We want to know what myths are, what they "do", and how they circulate and shape people's leisure lives. Myths can do more than obfuscate—they often animate people's lives, motivate collective action, and inspire change. In this Introduction, we map out the aims of the Special Issue to establish the conceptual terrain of leisure myths and mythmaking, and explore definitions and uses of myths, which are then brought into sharper focus in the eight papers that comprise the collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper notes the recent increased interest of leisure researchers in the concepts of human rights and social justice, with social justice being particularly favored by North America researchers. Since both concepts concern the just treatment and well-being of individuals and social groups in contemporary society, the paper aims to establish whether they represent distinctly different approaches to analysis or are overlapping in meaning and possibly complementary. It is found that, while some proponents of social justice down-play the significance of human rights, it is widely accepted that human rights are a component of social justice and that broad inclusive definitions of human rights encompass most of the concerns of social justice. It is therefore concluded that the two approaches to leisure analysis are complementary and each would benefit from incorporation of elements of the other in its conceptual framework and from more extensive engagement key generic social theory and policy frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This autoethnographic paper relives my first working night as a male stripper. The purpose of this paper is to examine my subjectivities as a male stripper by unpacking and theorizing around my autoethnographic writings from working at a private bachelorette party. This paper provides a new perspective in the sex and leisure literature and puts the (male) researcher into the study. It explores the complexities and vulnerabilities entangled within my subjectivities as a male stripper – its construction, deconstruction, and co-construction. Narratives are presented depicting scenes during my first working night from pre-party preparations to post-party reflections. These narratives analyze my desires to be accepted beyond the traditional physicality central to stripping, tensions present within role ambiguity, and the co-consumption of sexuality produced within this sex and leisure space. Critical analysis of my performer perspective advances the understanding of identity co-construction and co-consumption within these sociosexual leisure spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ontological and epistemological assumptions about leisure to critically assess the state of leisure scholarship. It argues that there are no intrinsic characteristics or essences inherent to leisure, and that researchers ought to make an important distinction between leisure as socially constructed social facts, and the erroneous view of leisure as an ontologically objective and universal entity. It is purported that from an epistemological standpoint the crisis of leisure sciences has never been resolved; however, the absence of a stable theory is an opportunity for new forms of research and knowledge to emerge. The article introduces postleisure as a departure from leisure-objectivism and a shift towards plural readings of leisure, which may find sufficient backbone in Rorty's notion of epistemological solidarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advances knowledge around the intersection of death, loss, and leisure travel. Our phenomenological study revealed the lived experiences of seven senior travelers who had traveled internationally following the death of a loved one(s). We employed the 'MeBox' method to help uncover new layers of meaning that are not always easy to put into words. The findings of our study provide new insights into notions of leisure by identifying overseas leisure travel within a liminal space in which feelings of loss and acceptance, and the creation of new perspectives, are experienced following the death of a loved one(s). Our findings challenge the destructive nature of human loss following death of a loved one(s). Instead, the experience of international travel appeared to influence the social, material, and existential life of senior travelers after the death of a loved one(s), transforming leisure into a personally meaningful experience for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual paper aims to serve two purposes: 1) introduce theories of surveillance to aid leisure scholars in exploring surveillance in its many forms; and, 2) add to the discussion on surveillance by layering "the leisure body" onto existing theory. We begin by introducing three groupings of "surveillance" theory: panoptic surveillance (think Bentham and Foucault), post-panoptical surveillance (think Deleuze), and contemporary surveillance (Galič et al., 2017). Panoptic surveillance is a physical surveillance (reliant on a fleshy body and physical space) where, like in Bentham's and Foucault's panopticons, the individual polices personal presentation and action under the presumption of being watched. We theorize this as surveillance on the body; it is body-to-body even as it is mediated through technology. Post-panoptical surveillance is less dependent on distinct, physical spaces, and particularly those of enclosure. We theorize this as the digital merging with the physical, where surveillance comes from the interaction of the technological with the fleshy body. Although this surveillance is less reliant on specific times and spaces—occurring within or through the body—it is nonetheless conditioned by our physical connections to technological devices. This is technology-to-body surveillance that is dependent on a physical interaction between the two. Contemporary surveillance is not dependent upon a physical linkage between technology and the body or a space of enclosure; it both marks an individual and simultaneously dissolves them into an ocean of big data. It is an inescapable surveillance as existence in the modern world. We call this technobody surveillance where the need for the interaction between technologies and fleshy bodies is subsumed by the gaseous and pervasive nature of apparatuses of surveillance. With each, we provide an exemplar from leisure practice, time, and/or space to illustrate how each operates within leisure phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper explores the transformation of murals at San Diego’s Chicano Park Skatepark into sites of spiritual struggle. We observe the extension of spiritual identification through skateboarding as a leisure pursuit that is woven with the symbols of Chicano identity. We frame our discussion through the material and symbolic paradigm of polluted leisure, since the park is both contaminated by heavy industry and othered through its ethnic composition. Embedded in this narrative is the struggle over a people encased in a polluted space, and framed alike pollution as unwanted, disposable, and unsightly. Amidst this example of a fraying society afflicted with both the slow violence of substance abuse and internal gentrification, a spiritual connection to skateboarding offers coherence. We conclude by showing how the spirituality of skateboarding works as a recasting of polluted leisure as both a resistant and hopeful act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper demonstrates how liminality provides a core framework for understanding the processes and practices through which Lego® Serious Play® can positively influence the student experience and wellbeing of children and young people (CYP). The study adopts a creative multi-sensory methodology whereby the focus is upon the Lego® and not the child. Using a play-based learning approach within an educational setting, data was collected in a UK junior school, involving sixty-four children, ranging from seven to eleven years of age. An initial group session was repeated two weeks later to monitor and observe changes. The results highlight that the Lego® Serious Play® methodology uses liminality to further the debate about the use of play as a leisure-based activity in educational settings. This study contributes to knowledge by utilizing Lego® Serious Play® (LSP) through a playful lens as a creative methodology and highlights the unique interaction between leisure, liminality and Lego®. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kyle and Jun raised a serious question against the way researchers have specified leisure constraints measurement model: Leisure constraints measures should be formatively measured, while the dominant model has been reflective. Despite their important theoretical contributions, Kyle and Jun's empirical evidence has limitations. The purpose of this paper is to directly examine their hypothesis by using a statistical method called confirmatory tetrad analysis in partial least squares. In Study 1, we tested nine leisure-time physical activity constraints sub-models with online survey data collected from 296 Canadians and 307 Japanese. Our results rejected the reflective model in six to seven out of the nine sub-categories. In Study 2, we re-analyzed Loucks-Atkinson and Mannell's (2007) data, where the traditional three categories of leisure constraints were measured. Results again rejected the reflective model in two categories. Our results provide mixed, yet more direct evidence for Kyle and Jun's argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Figure skating's origin story relates the sport to Norse mythology, but this claim does not stand up to a careful analysis. Its roots can be traced to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century antiquaries interested in the old north. The popularity of skating and early scholars' imperfect understanding of Old Norse led to skating appearing in translations and adaptations of medieval Scandinavian literature despite being absent from the original. The origin story's development can be traced through manuals and popular histories of figure skating from the eighteenth century to the present. This paper exposes figure skating's origin story as the invention of a privileged class to elevate a popular leisure activity and explains its enduring function in supporting the upper-class image of figure skating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The relatively recent rapid adoption of the concept of social infrastructure (SI) in numerous disciplines and fields stems from its relevance to contemporary urban issues. SIs mediate social interactions between urban inhabitants, thereby fostering livability in cities. Leisure often occupies an implicit presence in most SI research, yet the potential emanating from SI’s conceptual versatility remains underexplored in leisure studies. To be sure, the availability and quality of SIs shape urban “leisure-in-public,” but alternative possibilities for reimagining SIs from a sociability and relationality framework open up new prospects for leisure research. By appreciating the distinction between public and parochial realms as they relate to the social production of space and the processes of community, this paper offers directions for future SI research in leisure studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Work and leisure occupy two ends of a continuum. How work and leisure are organized pertains to ideologies and a sense of who we are. For example, in our current times, upper-/middle-class children’s leisure is frequently regulated and supervised, known as “concerted cultivation.” In contrast, “the achievement of natural growth” refers to working children spending their free time with minimum adult supervision. Likewise, two ideals regarding leisure and children’s play co-existed in Chinese history spanning over two thousand years. The exemplary child prevailing in historiographies is a juvenile prodigy who distains play, echoing the sentiment of concerted cultivation. Classical poems, however, depict an idyllic picture of the child at play uncontrived, resonating with the notion of “natural growth.” By examining these two childhood ideals, this paper discusses how Confucian and Daoist tenets shaped the concepts of leisure and work. It is argued that the two childhoods are intricately connected to ideologies traversing work, leisure, and social identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper explores the social practice of musicians who play in the streets and public spaces of Rio de Janeiro and Barcelona. We investigated the appropriation of these social spaces, the commodification of art on the streets, and the work/leisure relationship in the daily lives of these artists. Ethnographic methods were used for 24 months and included observations and interviews with 23 street musicians in these two cities. The interviewed musicians develop strategies aimed at meeting the need to survive from their art. The work/leisure relation is configured strangely in the social practice of these subjects and differently in the two cities. Nevertheless, the time/social space in which work and leisure are materialized in the daily life of the researched street musicians is directly related to the possible overlapping of one realm over the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been noted that crime and enforcement are likely a defining part of an evolving leisure experience. The aims of this manuscript were to call for research to focus on this phenomenon of the shooting and killing of people, particularly Black citizenry, by law enforcement. State sanctioned violence has been consistently wrought in leisure spaces and settings since those 2014–2015 deaths that were noted previously in a Leisure Sciences article, "The Case of the 12-year-old Boy: Or, the Silence of and Relevance to Leisure Research." An understanding of policing, not police officers, as tool for surveillance and control along with an understanding of society, not on individualized or small group social behavior are the needs in the research of a legitimate lethal and trauma-inducing phenomenon that occurs within the space, time, and activities of leisure, sport, and tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern technology doesn't only offer greater opportunities for leisure experiences. It opens the door for surveillance and disempowerment as well. As the justice-oriented endeavor of leisure researchers increased over the years, so too has their access to data sources on racialized people made possible by the advent of digital technology. Geospatial datasets are used to extrapolate leisure service disparities and social patterns in predominantly racialized communities. Yet we rarely question the adverse and potentially life-threatening effects of the use of big data in our research. We draw from the concept of geographies of threat to connect leisure research on disparities and the production of State violence imparted onto racialized spatial configurations. Leisure scholars must interrogate if and how the use of large datasets may contribute to the State surveillance apparatus rendering the lives of racialized peoples more vulnerable to the violence and coercive power of the State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

College is a critical period of transition to independence and the substantial amount of time that students have to participate in leisure activities may be conducive to substance use. However, little is known about the associations between leisure activities and substance use over time, or whether these associations differ by residential status (i.e. living with parents vs. on their own). Using latent profile analysis, this study found six distinct profiles of leisure activity participation in a racially/ethnically diverse sample of college students (N = 1207). Overall, profiles with medium levels of leisure activity participation were associated with more alcohol use, heavy drinking, and marijuana use one year later; whereas profiles with the lowest levels of leisure activity participation were associated with more cigarette use 1 year later. Identifying mechanisms through which leisure activities influence substance use can help inform prevention efforts to either reduce risks associated with participation or support protective effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Definitions of leisure and emotional experiences during leisure vary across cultures, but have been understudied. To elucidate the relationships between leisure, emotion, and culture, we adopted a cultural psychology method called situation sampling. Using an onsite survey, we collected leisure and non-leisure situations from 126 Euro-Canadian and 149 Mainland Chinese undergraduate students. Employing an online survey, we then asked another 203 Euro-Canadian and 228 Mainland Chinese undergraduate students about their interpretation of, and ideal positive affect within, randomly sampled situations. Although both groups distinguished leisure from non-leisure situations regardless of culture, results of the mixed ANOVA indicated Euro-Canadians interpreted Canadian leisure situations as leisure more highly than Mainland Chinese did. Moreover, Chinese leisure situations were more conducive to positive engaging emotions (e.g., friendly) than Canadian leisure situations, and Chinese participants idealized this kind of affect in leisure situations more than their Euro-Canadian counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explored leisure among second-generation Mexican-American youth residing in low-income communities in Southern California with a particular focus on how neighborhood features influenced their leisure participation; the strategies parents adopted to keep their children safe during leisure, and the effects of parental negotiation strategies on youth's leisure. The study was framed by the Family Systems Theory and the socio-ecological model. Data were collected using individual semi-structured interviews with six families, including four fathers, six mothers, and six children of middle-school age. The findings revealed that two main neighborhood-level factors influenced youth's participation in leisure: safety and space limitations. These features led to parents' imposing restrictions on children's leisure and adopting coping and negotiation strategies, which led to youth engaging mostly in passive, home-based activities, clustering of friends, and spending time with the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on leisure and time poverty has mainly focused on the duration of time and on the profile of the time poor. Using the 2013 Flemish Time-Use Data, this article investigates the influence of multiple dimensions of time wealth on leisure activities and leisure patterns for the working population. The four temporal dimensions used are leisure duration, leisure during the weekend, fragmentation of leisure, and subjective feeling of time pressure. Additionally, the article investigates if these dimensions affect working women and men differently. Findings indicate a significant association of the duration of leisure with many other leisure variables. However, other dimensions such as fragmentation of leisure seem to also play a significant role in shaping leisure patterns. Differentiating between working women and men especially made us reflect on the different effect of fragmentation for the leisure of men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of crafting has been widely applied in studies on occupational and organizational behavior. However, few studies have examined the crafting behavior of leisure participants. The purpose of this study was to develop leisure-crafting dimensions and to design a scale with satisfactory reliability and validity. Through a literature review and focus group interviews, researchers proposed 50 initial questionnaire items. Data were then collected from serious leisure participants and from the public. Subsequently, exploratory factor analysis was performed to facilitate scale purification and factor extraction, and confirmatory factor analysis was implemented to validate the factor structure. The scale effectiveness was verified through assessment of criterion-related and known-group validity. Results indicate that leisure crafting comprises four dimensions, namely increasing structural leisure resources, increasing social leisure resources, increasing challenging leisure demands, and decreasing leisure barriers. Theoretical and practical implications as well as suggestions for future research were outlined in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While research exists regarding the internet's influence on traditional forms of youth leisure, research based on a comprehensive set of leisure indicators is scattered. We explore how a set of young peoples' in-person leisure activities are complemented by their internet practices, using a canonical correlation framework to estimate the relationship between leisure activities and internet practices. We also measure how internet practices vary depending on the social properties of young people. We find that a strategic complementarity exists between certain offline leisure activities and specific online internet practices, in particular, that in-person social leisure is complemented by social interaction over the internet, that in-person cultural leisure is complemented by online information-seeking and asynchronous communication practices, and that in-home gaming is complemented by software and associated downloads. This strategic complementarity, furthermore, is also socially patterned, primarily by gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conducted an experiment to test theoretical propositions relating coherence, personalization, and provocation to in-situ engagement, deep experience, delight, and perceived value of time spent. Four hundred adults from a national panel viewed one of eight versions of a video centered on a character in Victor Hugo's classic novel Les Misérables, and then completed measures of engagement, deep experience, delight, perceived value of time spent, preexisting familiarity with the story, and the subjective experience of provocation. Each video represented a unique combination of presence or absence of the three hypothesized determinants: coherence, personalization, and provocation. Coherence, personalization, and preexisting familiarity with the story had significant effects on engagement. Provocation action increased engagement via its effect on the subjective experience of provocation. Engagement was a significant predictor of deep experience, and deep experience was a significant predictor of both delight and perceived value of time spent in the activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leisure engagement is linked to well-being and social integration, which is important for older adults, who are particularly at risk for social isolation (SI). The aim of this study was to examine the meanings and importance of leisure across the life course. We conducted life history interviews with twenty-six older adults who participated in (primarily) library-based writing programs in Southern Ontario, Canada. We employed narrative inquiry to investigate the processes and outcomes of writing ABOUT leisure. Herein, we highlight the results of one theme from our findings: 'writing AS leisure,' and two associated sub-themes: 'writing as purposeful leisure: relationship building and social capital' and 'being written out of the story: writing and isolation.' Findings speak to how participants rationalized their involvement in various forms of leisure, and the resultant types and qualities of the social relationships that were enabled and/or inhibited by engagement therein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effect of work-family conflict on tour leaders' psychological well-being and aims to understand the moderating role of leisure coping styles. A total of 288 valid questionnaires were collected from outbound tour leaders. Results show that the work-family conflict has a negative effect on the psychological well-being of tour leaders and that the planned-breather leisure coping style has a positive effect on psychological well-being, and the avoidant leisure coping style has a negative effect. Moreover, the planned-breather leisure coping style can buffer the negative relationship between work-family conflict and psychological well-being, and the avoidant leisure coping style can reinforce the negative relationship between work-family conflict and psychological well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All forms of arts participation are likely to lead to positive outcomes, but the nature and reach of these outcomes will differ. While arts programs have increasingly found favor in disability communities, these programs historically have been oriented toward therapeutic outcomes. They have not been taken seriously in terms of artistic outputs, the deeper benefits for participants, or potential wider societal impact. At the same time, there is anecdotal evidence of increasingly sophisticated artistic engagement involving artists with disability that are gaining wider public attention, popularity, and enabling a serious leisure experience for the artist with the opportunity for professional artistic career development. This article demonstrates how disability arts projects enable opportunities for casual leisure, serious leisure, and professional artistic engagement and examines the resultant social impact for each. To do this we investigate the characteristics and outcomes of three projects through an abductive research design involving a comparative qualitative case-based approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though one of the most commonly employed analysis techniques in the leisure literature, multiple regression and, in particular, the ordinary least squares (OLS) approach are subject to a number of critical assumptions, violation of which threaten the efficiency and validity of OLS findings. This article demonstrates the utility of an alternative approach, geographically weighted regression (GWR), a local form of linear regression that can be used to model spatially varying relationships and accounts for the spatial effects of heterogeneity (nonstationarity) and dependence (autocorrelation) in data. The small number of leisure studies that have employed GWR is reviewed, with a focus on the relative performance of the two approaches; GWR is shown to be superior to OLS in every case where the appropriate comparison was conducted. Other areas to which GWR could usefully be applied are suggested, and limitations of GWR are acknowledged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation theory posits that adopting new leisure activities contributes to well-being in later life. We explored the relevance of innovation theory among Canadian baby boomers transitioning to retirement. Using grounded theory and online qualitative methods, we recruited baby boomers who had recently retired or were planning to retire in the next five years. Twenty-five participants engaged in three two-week blogging sessions, followed by face-to-face focus groups/interview over about one year. Data, including blog posts from each session and focus group/interview transcripts, were analyzed using initial, focused, and theoretical coding. Two main themes, embracing retirement and pursuing new and former leisure, highlighted nuances of leisure and the transition to retirement as participants adjusted to increased free time along with shifting priorities and available resources. The findings supported innovation theory and suggested areas of refinement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined meanings of leisure and a Chinese leisure-like term (i.e., xiū xián) from laypeople's perspectives by modifying Ito and Walker's (2014) Leisure Ten Statements Test. Specifically, Euro-Canadian and Mainland Chinese undergraduate students were asked to provide 10 answers to "What is leisure/xiū xián for you?" and "What is not leisure/xiū xián for you?" An inductive coding of these lay definitions resulted in 24 categories, aligned with academic definitions (i.e., time, activity, setting, and psychological experience), suggesting the cross-cultural applicability of the leisure phenomenon. Multivariate analyses of variance identified categories that were more salient among Mainland Chinese (e.g., mass media, rest and reflection, motivation) and categories that were more salient among Euro-Canadians (e.g., emotion). The statistical results also suggested that Mainland Chinese and Euro-Canadians defined leisure/xiū xián similarly concerning some categories (e.g., relatedness and social activities, autonomy). We propose a laypeople's definition of leisure from a cross-cultural perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identified best practices for quantitative methods and results reporting and then evaluated leisure science articles' adherence to them. A two-stage stratified sampling method identified 112 articles. A codebook was developed, and 26 universal codes addressing abstract, methods, and results were applied to each article to generate best practices scores (BPS). BPS ranged from 6 to 21 (M = 14.89, SD = 2.95). Articles were more likely to use best practices for abstract, sample selection, recruitment, statistics, and data analysis, and less likely for participant characteristics, instrumentation, and data collection procedures. Comparisons of BPS across journals identified significant differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Falls among older adults can lead to severe physical and psychological consequences. However, whether leisure participation changes after falling is not clear. We investigated whether falls resulted in reduced leisure participation in terms of duration, number, and intensity among older adults. Secondary data from the Health and Retirement Study and the Consumption and Activities Mail Survey (n = 1163) were analyzed. The results showed falls did not predict future leisure participation. Female, white, higher education, fewer functional limitations, and good balance were significant predictors of leisure participation at follow-up. Being white also predicted a significant decline in total number of leisure activities from baseline to follow-up, whereas higher education protected older adults from a significant reduction in total intensity of leisure activity. Our findings suggest falls may not directly affect leisure participation, but its risk factors, such as demographics, functional limitations, and balance, have a direct impact on leisure participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study adopted experiential learning theory to examine the role of leisure in socio-cultural adaptation among international students from China. It explored how international students integrated the four steps of experiential learning: concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation, into culture learning in the leisure context. Two rounds of semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 15 first-year Chinese international students attending a large Midwestern university. The findings revealed that leisure could be an effective facilitator of socio-cultural adaptation. Experiential learning strategies such as reflective observation and abstract conceptualization (i.e., seeing beyond stereotypes) and active experimentation (i.e., taking initiative and imitating host nationals' behavior) were used by the students in the leisure contexts to learn about the host culture. International students also encountered confusions and frustrations during the culture learning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Myths are symbolic structures that influence the way meanings are created and the social world is interpreted. This study aims to understand how myths are sustained by play and focuses on the example of a seasonal ritual, namely Hıdrellez spring celebration, in Turkey. Hıdrellez celebration is a leisure activity characterized by festive events, rituals, and social practices. It also relates to human knowledge and practice concerning nature and the universe. The study adopts a qualitative research design based on interviews, as this is an exploratory study. The findings reveal that plays contributes to the continuation of myths via performances, leisure communities, embodiment, and fun. However, it is also evident that the sacred rituals of Hıdrellez are being commodified by the entertainment businesses in urban settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current Western leisure theory is primarily based on Western research, although social scientific leisure research has been carried out for approximatelly 70 years. The goal of this essay is to introduce the leisure thoughts of Confucianism and Taoism as presented in the Chinese classic Zhang Wu Zhi. Hitherto, two Western historians who study Zhang Wu Zhi have opened a window for the study of Zhang Wu Zhi world wide, although they do not pay attention to leisure practice and thinking because of their academic backgroud. This research reflects the leisure thoughts of the rich Chinese traditional literati under the influence of Confucianism and Taoism. As presented in Zhang Wu Zhi and as a tradition, these religious traditions profoundly affect the leisure activities and characteristics of modern Chinese people currently and in the future. In this case, the Chinese text needs to be reintroduced to contribute to global leisure research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]