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Scholars have long recognized that injustice pervades recreation and leisure. Some scholars have framed leisure activities or research as a meaningful response to injustice, a body of research we term resistance studies. However, this body of research has grown without a corresponding rise in analyses of unjust social structures. Given that injustice is rooted in the social structure, critical analysis of the resistance studies literature is needed to determine. if the field is tackling the oppression and domination of people. We address this gap through a systematic review of the resistance studies literature in leisure journals. The review was guided by the following questions: (a) what theoretical or conceptual frameworks have authors used to guide their investigations of resistance, (b) what are the targets of resistance (i.e., that which is being resisted), and (c) what acts are presented as resistance. We argue that many of the articles reviewed did not ground resistance historically or conceptually. Without such conceptual grounding, it was difficult for us to see how leisure activities or research could be an effective counter to injustice. We encourage future scholars to ground their work in non-Western thinkers who mapped social structures and worked for material change. The relevance of leisure activities to material change remains to be seen.

Abstract:The imbalanced sex ratio in the Black community could contribute to sexual partner concurrency. This study examined the association between perceptions of the availability of heterosexual male partners (sex ratio) and heterosexual Black women's attitudes and experiences with concurrent sexual partnerships. We found that perceptions of a high sex ratio (more men relative to women) were positively associated with attitudes towards concurrent sexual partnerships and prevalence of sexual concurrency. Future research must account for contextual factors influencing sexual networks such as the sex ratio that affect behaviors and attitudes influencing Black women's risk for HIV infection.

Oncology support group leaders may benefit from the narratives of their patients coupled with the use of theory. In the case of this analytic auto-ethnography, professionals will gain insights into the process and value of post-traumatic growth as well as the usefulness of opportunities to socially compare with peer oncology patients. The following is an auto-ethnographical account of the first author’s personal journey with cancer through the review of a journal kept during and after treatment. This approach allowed for both depth and breadth of understanding from a personal experience with illness coupled with the application and understanding of theory applied to that personal journey. Two major themes emerged centered on the value of social comparison opportunities with others that are experiencing cancer as well as the evolution of emotions leading to post traumatic growth. Implications for practice center on developing therapeutic recreation-based oncology support programs using the theoretical lenses of post traumatic growth as well as social comparisons in illness.

AbstractContemporary population trends impact leisure experiences and service delivery, requiring recreation and leisure departments to prepare students to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse clientele. However, with little formal training on how to teach content concerning diverse populations, this can be a daunting task. The panel session Preparing Students to Serve Diverse Populationswas featured at the 2018 The Academy of Leisure Sciences(TALS) Research and Teaching Institute to help instructors navigate the challenges that arise when teaching diversity-related content to undergraduate and graduate students. This paper focuses on the lessons and recommendations that emerged from that panel of social justice scholars. Using the teaching to transgress philosophy and the Teaching Tolerance Anti-bias Framework, we highlight personal philosophies, pedagogical experiences, and specific activities that may help other instructors teach beyond diversity to facilitate students’ connections with broader issues of social justice.

ABSTRACTWithin leisure studies, to properly explore and understand ‘Whiteness’ as a cultural process that impacts lived realities it is important to create distance from the oft-used term, White privilege, and begin to grapple with the magnitude of White Supremacy as the fundamental basis for the creation ‘Whiteness’. This critical commentary as a revision to (Mowatt’s [2009]. “Notes From a Leisure son: Expanding an Understanding of Whiteness in Leisure.” Journal of Leisure Research41 (4): 509–526) ‘Notes of a Leisure Son’ in the Journal of Leisure Research, seeks to hone and advance ‘Whiteness’ studies within leisure studies, and to identify ways that an emancipated field of leisure studies could engage in critical theory and action. It is thought that such a coupling could off-set the impact that ‘Whiteness’ (as an outgrowth of White Supremacy rather than White privilege) has had on the lived realities of populations of colour and racially classified Whites who seek to abandon ‘Whiteness’ as an identity of dominance.

The purpose of this study was to examine the progression of discourse on race within leisure studies scholarship through the lens of racecraftand the construct of mattering. The Journal of Leisure Researchas well as Scholewere examined within the periods of the 1990s (1989–2000) and the 2010s (2009–2019). Articles were chosen based upon their employment of the keywords of community recreation, youth development, and race within both time periods, yielding a total of 99 articles that were examined. A discourse historical approach (DHA) was utilized to assess the impact of the socio-political context on leisure research as well as the development of discourse on race. Through DHA techniques and the concept of racecraft, this study classified articles under five overarching themes: Faint mentions of race, racialization in the negative, improper terminology use, intentionality of race, and inadequate lens of problem/solution. Based upon the findings, leisure literature has displayed minimal progression in its conceptualizations of race. Leisure studies scholarship reflects the dominant discourse through its latent ideology of racism that maintains marginalization of various racialized ethnic groups. It is posited that, without institutional examination and targeted mitigation efforts, the field of leisure will continue to uphold a detrimental racial order with an underdeveloped political and historical stance on race.

ABSTRACTIn 1976, James Baldwin’s The Devil Finds Work is published, a scathingly telling piece of cinematic critique at the height of exploitation and the ongoing efforts of the Black Liberation Movement (BLM). Prior to that in 1963, Baldwin had published The Fire Next Time, a poignant letter to a nephew on the state of America in the midst of eventual civil unrest. What is presented is a fictionalized letter to a family member that takes the reader through a day-in-the-life of a racialised self within a society that does the work of racialising through forms of leisure entertainment, all in the midst of a pandemic and global civil unrest. Within that day, Baldwin’s work serves as the inspiration for this recollection and criticism, as very little has been discussed about fiction as entertainment for consumption and the implications of this consumption. Here, the devil finds leisure as much as work.

AbstractThe end of year student course evaluations (SETs), the dreaded final act of a semester of teaching and learning that serves the “supposed” purpose of evaluating a course and its instructor. Various studies have already shown how SETs are ineffective in serving such a purpose, yet SETs are still used for major decisions such as tenure and promotion, and annual merit pay increases. Further, the fact that SETs are rife with racial, gender, and ethnic bias towards instructors is equally troubling. The aim of this reflexive essay is to highlight a form of racialized intellectual violence that is heaped upon faculty of color based on a content analysis of the author’s negative and potentially racially motivated SETs over the span of a 12-year career. The outcomes of such a reflexive essay is to bring awareness and highlight the professional and psychological impacts that make teaching in/and of color in academia a precarious endeavor, as well as problematizing SETs use as a true evaluation of teaching effectiveness.

There is a great realization that a professor teaching an introductory or philosophical foundations course in the field of leisure studies comes to, if that professor may not be from the dominant culture of most Western societies. This realization is as stark as their numerical presence in their respective departments. Why are the philosophical foundations of the field devoid of the experiences, voices, and perspectives populations of colour, or even more broadly, the populations of the global majority? The objectives of this manuscript are: 1) to briefly categorize the research in the field on Race and ethnicity; 2) to outline the key canonical texts of the field; 3) to consider and reconceptualize a racially and ethnically inclusive foundation for the field utilizing W. E. B. Du Bois’ (1899) The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Studyas an example. Within the 520 pages of The Philadelphia Negro,the term leisure is mentioned 21 times. Recreation as a term is used 19 times; and, 4) to identify how the integration of The Philadelphia Negrocould impact or realign the field’s history and master narratives and master concepts. What we are granted in leisure studies through the addition of The Philadelphia Negroas a foundational text is quite possibly the first sociological study, the first empirical study, the first large sample study, and the first mixed methods designed study.

ABSTRACTAs a western social construction, our modern views of leisure were founded by the emergence of new French and British societies from the early 1700s to the late 1800s. The city, and the lifestyle that accompanied it, brought forth an articulation of a leisured society for all citizenry. The major capital campaigns, world fairs, open parks, public museums, cafés, shopping districts, and other edifices articulated what we now see as modern leisure spaces. However, within leisure texts little has been considered and discussed in how Trans-Atlantic Slavery, Imperial Colonialism, and Independence Debt led to the allowance of an emerging and expanding leisured class during and post-Industrial Revolution. What is articulated is an alternate historical interpretation that is intended to be the first in a series of critical commentaries on the: (1) European foundations of leisure; (2) leisure history centred on Europe; (3) financial gains from slavery, colonialism, and debts; and, (4) implications of revising our understanding of leisure history.

AbstractThe recruitment and retention of faculty and students of color is a long-standing challenge in academic programs focusing on leisure studies, parks, recreation, and tourism. However, when confronting the predominantly white composition of educational programs, many evade or, at most, acknowledge the situation as a “deficit.” Few offer specific strategies for reversing this pattern, if that is the desired outcome. The purpose of this essay is to extend the discourse beyond traditional diversity initiatives by undertaking a field-wide initiative focused on the disparities in faculty and student representation. First, the essay examines systems that have created and supported the persistence of “white” as privileged in academia. Next, a summary and critique of institutional faculty demographic data over the 5-year period from 2006–2011 from four diverse institutions are presented. This analysis illustrates patterns that have resulted in presumably less than desirable numbers of faculty and students of color. Concrete suggestions for recruiting, retaining, and promoting people of color in academic leisure studies programs are included. Increasingly, today's students are attracted to academic programs in which they will be exposed to faculty representing the diversity they will encounter as professionals. This essay offers a call to bridge the perceived gap between practitioners and academia by recommending systemic changes informed by the lived experiences of communities of color that are effectively served by various leisure service providers.

Hosting mega-events offers cities within the United States an opportunity to gain benefits that are tangible and intangible. The primary objective of this two-year case study was to examine the impact of Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid on the surrounding communities of the proposed Olympic sites. The research design of this community-based case study was comprised of interviews, review of reports, document analysis, and field observations of community-based meetings, city council forums, and community-led political actions. The results revealed inconsistencies in the incorporation of participants from the communities most affected by the bid and planning. The primary findings developed a picture of the complexities of issues and abuses of power that prompted gentrification, displacement, and discrimination. The study calls for future research that focuses on issues connected to socio-economic conflict as it relates to the distribution of wealth, power, and access that leisure-related opportunities seemingly create.

AbstractThrough an interdisciplinary lens, this paper proposes two concepts for Black feminist analysis (visibility and hypervisibility) to augment feminist leisure scholarship. We examine questions of invisibilityin relation to the systematic oppression that besets Black women in society, and in the academy, through their absence as research participants and researchers. This raises a new sense of invisiblemarginality that may exist in scholarship, and otherwise. With hypervisibilityin body politics, Black women are represented in stereotyped and commodified ways throughout leisure spaces and scholarship. The critique of historical and contemporary representations of hyper-visibility is conducted through representations of Black women's bodies. We conclude with specific implications as Black feminism provides a culturally congruent epistemology to advance the field and augment third wave feminism.

This study investigated attitudes toward gay men and lesbians among recreational club sport participants, including an investigation of differences in attitudes across sport clubs, team and individual sports, gender, and contact with gay men and lesbians. This study used a modified version of the Attitudes toward Lesbians and Gay Men scale administered online to acquire overall attitudinal scores of participants, as well as two parallel subscale scores. Utilizing MANOVA and ANOVA statistical testing procedures, significant differences (p< .01) in attitudes toward gay men and lesbians were found based on gender, contact with gay men and lesbians, and among different recreational club sports. Significant statistical differences (p< .01) between attitudinal subscale scores were also found across demographic levels.

AbstractPedagogically, the term "bottleneck" refers to a moment when students may face barriers to understanding content in the process of learning. As instructors identify Ȝbottlenecksȝ within their courses, they are faced with the challenge of how to best assist students in overcoming them. Further, most instructors want to know what selected teaching strategies to implement in the classroom to increase student learning. The seven-step process of Decoding the Disciplines (Middendorf & Pace, 2004) provides a platform for helping students learn howto think instead of whatto think to successfully progress through identified bottlenecks. The model also allows for instructors to collect evidence-based results of student learning that contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning, while infusing deeper meaning and learning into the classroom. The model is particularly useful for instructors who face challenges in incorporating alternative pedagogical strategies.

AbstractAs a professionally based field, leisure studies programs are perpetually in a position to produce the future managers, supervisors, and directors of the various subfields that comprise our areas of studies. Based on this reality and the need to adequately fulfill accreditation standards, insulate programs to the changing school/university priorities, and raise the caliber and abilities of our graduates, the aim of this learning activity discussion is to highlight Backward Designas a useful approach that could address the demands of each of those needs. Backward Designemphasizes a three-stage process to tackle, reshape, and implement learning outcomes in a curriculum or a course. Thinking of our students as graduates at the onset offers an effective way to produce quality students for the culmination of a program or course.

AbstractThe practice of management continues to be important in leisure service delivery and in the academic preparation of future practitioners. As leisure and business research direct a conscious eye to leadership and management, similarly pedagogical research should direct attention to effective course content and teaching design. Team-based learning (TBL) is a promising approach to teaching that yields increased discussion, learning, and preparation of future managers on the intricacies of management and the importance of leadership. Also, TBL is a conscious use of cooperative and collaborative learning techniques in a permanent group structure. Support of this approach is based on the initial feedback and information collected from a redesigned course that emphasized semester-long group work and a group final exam. The findings supported previous research on team-based learning where students' perceptions of the learning environment and experience was remarkably higher while their performance on course content was also higher than in previous incarnations of the course, and learning of group skills was identified.

AbstractWhiteness is a fundamental aspect of American society and because of this leisure research is as troubled as our own racialized identities. Whiteness becomes a problematic dimension in our discourse if unchallenged by not critically examining race within the context of power. Taking a stance that Whiteness exists in five politically based racial projects, enables leisure research to uncover the apparent and invisible ways that power exists in professional practices, public policy development, and accepted research paradigms in published works. Inspired by Notes From a Native Sonand serving as a rejoinder to previous discussions on Whiteness and race, the aim here is to address Whiteness in leisure with a brief analysis of history, contemporary issues, and policy. With an expanded understanding of Whiteness, leisure research could be a liberating tool for social justice to usher new conceptions, new theories, and new approaches to instruction, programming, and understanding in the field.