Recent research roundup: highlights from the 2002 Leisure Research Symposium.

Last year's Leisure Research Symposium in Tampa, Fla., was the 25th edition of the symposium. Sixty-two paper presentations and 16 poster presentations were given during 25 sessions of the symposium. In addition, two concurrent informal brown bag seminars took place. One brown bag featured a debate on new paradigms for marketing leisure services, with John Crompton, Ron McCarville and Troy Glover as panelists. The second session, on the place of the humanities in leisure research, Featured Mary Parr, John Hemingway and Maureen Glancy. With the exceptions of the brown bag seminar panel presentations, the complete list of presentations and abstracts can be found in Abstracts from the 2002 Leisure Research Symposium, which is available from NRPA. (See Floyd & Stewart, 2002, in the list of references on p. 33.) This research update highlights a few papers presented at the 2002 symposium and applications of this research for park and recreation professionals.

Being one year removed from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, afforded time for reflection on how these events affected the travel industry, leisure and the community of leisure scholars, Immediately following the at tacks, media reporting focused on short-term and more visible changes, such as the crippling of the travel industry, low travel volume and job losses. There was reporting on fundamental shifts in social priorities. For example, we heard how fundamentally work life had been rearranged on that day, at Ground Zero, and in widening spatial and temporal circles from there. Everything from the sudden realization on the part of type-A personality Wall Street traders that there is more to their life than work, to people in cities being less willing to work in high-rise buildings, to real estate agents saying people were buying property in smaller towns because they feel safer there, to Ground Zero workers putting in weeks at a time of unbroken work, to police and fire departments being stripped of much of their staff as we went to war. All of these stories have been in the press. Less coverage, however, was devoted to whether these impacts would be long lasting. How would the roles of leisure and work in everyday life be rearranged as a result of Sept. 11? Would such changes be long lasting? Moreover, how can the community of leisure researchers be more responsive during and following events of such magnitude and scale?

The opening session of the 2002 symposium focused on these questions. It featured two researchers, Debbie Chavez of the U.S. Forest Service and Jo Tynon of Oregon State University, who talked about what they've learned from their studies of crime and violence on public lands and their affects on recreationists' decision-making. For many years, they've studied peoples' perceptions of safety and security, and how those perceptions compare to what law enforcement officials perceive as threats and dangers. A key revelation for many in the audience was the range of criminal activities occurring on public lands. Their presentation stimulated a lively discussion on methodological and ethical implications inherent in research on crime, violence and homeland security in public outdoor recreation areas.

Public Views and Public Lands

Managing recreation on federal lands can be complex and contentious. Three papers provided insight on public opinion of land-management issues. Paul Whitworth presented a model of public involvement in natural-resource decisions. Whitworth argued that perceptions of fairness, satisfaction with management decisions and organizational support can be enhanced by providing face-to-face communications with the public, educating stakeholders on natural resource-management concepts and giving appropriate explanations for management decisions. He suggested that collaborative involvement engenders trust and empowerment among public stakeholders, and can promote acceptance for controversial management decisions.

Another paper in the session, by Tarrant, Cordell and Green, described how public opinion of the National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS) has changed since 1995, the last year a nationwide report on wilderness values was issued. Using data from the 2000 National Survey on Recreation and the Environment, the authors reported that awareness of the NWPS has increased since 1995. They noted, however, than that awareness varied by social and demographic background. While Tarrant and colleagues found thate awareness increased, they reported that fewer people in 2000 believed that the amount of land in the NWPS isn't enough, suggesting that increased awareness didn't translate to increased support for additional wilderness designation.

While the public continues to value wilderness and protected areas, it's also clear that how environmental values are expressed can differ across ethnic and cultural groups. This was demonstrated in a paper by Leo McAvoy, Joseph Flood and Paul Schrilla. They studied outdoor recreation patterns and place meaning among the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes of the Flathead Reservation in Montana. They found that members of the tribal groups made an extensive use of nearby national forests for hunting, berry and mushroom picking, camping, hiking and collecting traditional plants. Their activities were organized around immediate and extended family units and concentrated in primitive or undeveloped regions of the forests. McAvoy, Flood and Schrilla found that the cultural and symbolic values were the most important meanings of the forests among the tribal groups.

McAvoy and colleagues argued that their study revealed three major research and management issues: First, members of the tribal groups view outdoor recreation as a foreign concept. Outdoor activities (e.g., hunting, fishing, camping, berry picking) are viewed as "ways of carrying on ... traditional subsistence use of the natural world." Second, experienced or anticipated racism--stemming from white recreationists and agency staff while in the national forests--steer tribal members away from certain areas of national forests. Finally, management decisions on national forests impact traditional subsistence activities of tribal groups. They noted that management decisions are often made without regard for how they impact tribal uses.

Questions emerging from this session included:

* How effective are public-participation models in different resource and decision-making contexts?

* How are changing views of wilderness and other natural resources likely to impact future land-use decisions?

* How can recreation professionals recognize tribal values and customs in policymaking and planning?

Community Identity and Social Capital

The concept of social capital and its role in building community is attracting more attention from leisure researchers. Eight papers addressed some aspects of social capital refers to resources embedded in social networks and interactions available for collective action (Lin, 2001). Dwayne, Baker and Palmer highlighted the need for building strong communities to meet the challenges of our time. Their study sought to better understand the underlying structure of community pride and community satisfaction. Their findings suggested that recreation involvement makes a significant contribution to community pride and satisfaction. They also found that community involvement was a good predictor of community pride and satifaction.

Troy Glover explored the nature of social capital by interviewing residents and volunteers involved in a neighborhood community garden project. The garden was established to counteract crime and reclaim community space. Glover found that the social interaction sorrounding the gardening project provided a number of resources to the community. For example, he reported that residents believed the garden increased volunteering time and labor. There was also the perception that the garden facilitated social interaction between whites and African Americans. Glover noted that, while some African Americans thought the project was basically a "white folks" project, the residents believed the garden was beneficial to social relations in the neighborhood. As one resident remarked, "We've got a pretty good network ... because of the tight neighborhood network and people pulling together to try to improve the situation."

The role of leisure in creating social capital and community identity seems to show a different pattern among immigrant groups. Stodolska and Yi explored social networks among immigrants from Korea, Mexico and Poland. Their primary focus was to examine the extent to which members of these groups interacted with members of their own ethnic groups in leisure activities. Drawing on interviews with immigrants in Chicago and Champaign, Ill., they found that the vast majority of interactions in leisure, regardless of ethnic background, were limited to people or groups of their own ethnic background. However, individuals who came to the U.S. during children or teenage years were more likely to interact with people outside of their ethnic groups. The most commonly mentioned reasons given by their research participants for ethnic enclosure included the comfort level provided by co-ethnic group members, common culture, discrimination and harassment, lack of language skills and tear of the unknown. Stodolska and Yi also noted that limited contact with members of other ethnic groups was a barrier to employment and advancement in the workforce, delayed integration or assimilation and slow acquisition of language skills.

Questions emerging from this session included:

* To what extent can recreational professionals help create social capital to promote community involvement and neighborhood improvement?

* What strategies exist for increasing residents' participation in community-based organizations and activities?

* How can recreation professionals act to build connections between immigrants and the broader community?

Leisure and Family Cohesion 

Constrasting portrayals of family leisure were presented in the session on family roles and functioning. For example, Shaw, Havitz and Delamere explored the meanings of family vacations among families with pre-adolescent children. In contrast to earlier studies in which the focus was on understanding individual factors such as self-fulfillment, personal accomplishment or challenge, Shaw and colleagues sought to understand the interactional and group nature of vacation experiences. Three themes were identified: family togetherness; vacations as escape for the parents; and vacations as educational experiences for their children. Shaw and colleagues suggested that the core meaning of family vacations seemed to be the importance of creating positive memories through shared time and experiences.

In contrast, Diane Samdahl portrayed leisure in ways rarely acknowledged by leisure researchers. Samdahl provided a penetrating look into the lives of women survivors of domestic abuse. Using autobiographies and poetry written by survivors of abuse as her data, Samdahl presented several stories of how family vacations, holidays and everyday activities such as watching television were times of violence and fear rather than family fun and enjoyment. Samdahl challenged the leisure-studies field in two important ways: she made an effective case for more research attention on the "ungoodness" of family leisure, and highlighted the bias toward researching positive aspects of family in the literature. And she questioned whether the interests of women are being served by the field's adherence to long-standing biases about positive aspects of family leisure.

Questions emerging from this session included:

* What's the meaning of family leisure from the group and individual perspectives? And what's really unique about family tourist experiences?

* What prevents researchers from studying the broader spectrum of family leisure experiences?

* What are the consequences of researchers' choices of methods and data for the quality of life among study populations?

Leisure and Coping with Injury and Stress

Several papers addressed the question, "How does leisure help individuals cope with stress and traumatic injuries?" Yoshi Iwasaki tested several rival models of leisure coping with a sample of police and emergency response workers in a Canadian city. The models differed in how coping beliefs (i,e., people's beliefs that leisure helps them cope), coping strategies (e.g., actual behaviors), adaptive outcomes and health outcomes were interrelated.

Iwasaki found that, while stress exerts a negative effect on health and adaptation to stress, leisure coping strategies have a positive effect on adaptive outcomes and health outcomes. Iwasaki concluded that "leisure tends to act as a means for effectively dealing with stress, reducing stress and promoting satisfactory outcomes regardless of stress levels individuals experience."

Loy, Dattilo and Kleiber examined the influence of leisure in the adjustment of individuals with spinal cord injury. They found that leisure engagement does influence adjustment to spinal cord injury. Increased diversity of engagements, higher frequency of engagements and greater intensity of engagements were associated with lower depression scores. Increases in diversity frequency and intensity of leisure were associated with higher scores on perceived health and social well-being. Loy and colleagues emphasized the importance of maintaining an active leisure lifestyle after a negative life event. In the following presentation, Hutchinson and colleagues, using in-depth interviews of individuals with spinal cord injury and chronic illnesses, found that leisure activities "served as a source of motivation to sustaining coping efforts" and as a means of distracting individuals from their immediate life circumstances giving them a "psychological time out."

Wilhite, Keller and Hodges provided a life-long perspective on leisure and well being They sought to understand how individuals adapt and cope with changing roles, demands and individual capacities over the course of life. In a preliminary study, they conducted interviews with six adults from age 27 to 70 to get a sense of the importance of various life domains among the study participants, definitions of optimal health and well-being, and strategies for optimizing health and well-being. They identified patterns of compensation (prioritizing roles and activities), selection (using readjusting goals and life roles), optimizing (e.g., "knowing my body" and "educating myself") and evaluating (exploring options and trial and error).

Questions emerging from this session included:

* How can the recreation profession help law enforcement and emergency service workers and their families deal with stress?

* What other aspects of leisure engagements contribute to adjustments to spinal cord injury and other chronic health conditions?

* How effective are therapeutic recreation interventions in targeting and supporting individuals' strategies for optimizing health and well-being?

Outcomes of Recreation and Leisure

Jan Cox and Nelson Cooper tested whether benefits-based programming increased resiliency skills among youth participating in a summer day camp. All of the study participants came from low socioeconomic-status home environments. Using an experimental design with pre- and post-test, and a comparison group, they found that five of the seven measures of resiliency were significantly higher among youth in the benefits-based programming than those who participated in a traditional recreation program. The specific dimensions of resiliency where the benefits-based programming group scored significantly higher were values orientation, independence, insight, humor and creativity. While their results demonstrated the effectiveness of benefits-based programming in this day camp setting, Cox and Nelson recommended broader tests with other socioeconomic groups and recreation settings.

Churilla, Baker and Rodriguez studied factors that contribute to self-worth among youthful participants in an Arizona-based court-mandated diversion program. They noted that community service agencies continue to be challenged to find ways to reduce risk factors associated with poverty, crime, child abuse and drugs. They found that family cohesion and sense of acceptance and belonging were the two most important predictors self-worth. They were also the best predictors of behavioral conduct.

Cory and Dattilo tested the effectiveness of a computer-assisted leisure education program on social skills and on verbal and nonverbal prosocial and antisocial behaviors among youth with disabilities. They noted that "without social skills, individuals are less likely to be accepted by their peers and continue leisure involvement." Their study employed a single-subject design across four youth with varying disabilities (e.g., mild mental retardation, Down's syndrome, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) enrolled in a summer day camp.

Their results indicated that while the computer-assisted leisure education increased knowledge of social skills, there was little change in observed verbal and nonverbal prosocial and antisocial behaviors. Cory and Dattlio attributed the latter finding to study design limitations. For example, the study was of short duration (seven weeks) and there were no incentives for prosocial behaviors and there were no negative consequences for antisocial behaviors. They concluded by stating that the study design should be refined in future studies, suggesting that computer-assisted leisure education represents another means of introducing interventions to youth with disabilities.

Questions emerging from this session included:

* How can recreation professionals support positive development of youth in at-risk situations? And what kind of research is needed to meet this challenge?

* To what extent can emerging computer gaming technologies be effective in implementing interventions for youth at risk and youth with disabilities?

* What are the limits to computer-based technology in designing interventions?

Editor's' Note: "This column highlights applications of current research to park and recreation professionals. The members of the Society for Park and Recreation Education (SPRE) hope to see you at SPRE-sponsored events at the 2003 Congress, including the Research Roundtable (to be held Wednesday, Oct. 22) and the Leisure Research Symposium Oct. 22-25). See the NRPA Congress pages at www.nrpa.org.

References

Baker, D. & Palmer, R. (2002). Perceptions of community pride: A comparison between recreation participants and non-participants (p. 54).

Cox, J. & Cooper, N.L. (2002). Benefits-based programming: Youth development through summer day camp participation (p. 5).

Churilla, A., Baker, D., & Rodriguez, A. (2002). Exploring factors that influence self-worth among participants in a diversion program (p. 6).

Cory, L., Dattilo, J. & Williams, R. (2002). Effects of a leisure education program on social interaction knowledge and skills of youth with disabilities (p. 8).

Floyd, M.F. & Stewart, S.I. (2002). Abstracts from the 2002 Leisure Research Symposium. Ashburn, VA: National Recreation and Park Association.

Glover, T.D. (2002). Social capital in the lived experiences of community gardeners (p. 55).

Hutchinson, S.L., Kleiber, D.A., Loy, D.P. & Dattilo, J. (2002). Leisure as a coping resource: Variations in coping with traumatic injury and illness (p. 3).

Iwasaki, Y. (2002). Examining rival models of leisure coping mechanisms (p. 1).

Lin, N. (2001). Social capital: A theory of social structure and action. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Loy, D.P., Dattilo, J. & Kleiber, D.A. (2002). Examining the influence of leisure in the adjustment of individuals with spinal cord injury: Development of the leisure and SCI adjustment model (p. 2).

Tarrant. M. A., Cordell, H.K., Green, G.T. (2002). Public views and values of wilderness: Are they changing? (p. 69).

McAvoy, L.H., Flood, J.P., & Schrilla, P.J. (2002). American Indian outdoor recreation and place meanings in national forests (p. 70).

Samdahl, D. (2002). Leisure end domestic abuse: Insights from the autobiographies of survivors (p. 22).

Shaw, S.M., Havitz, M.E., & Delamere, F.M. (2002). Creating memories, creating families: Family vacations and the social construction of the family (p.21).

Stodolska, M. & Yi, J. (2002). Social networks, ethnic enclosure, and leisure behavior among immigrants from Korea, Mexico and Poland (p. 67).

Whitworth, P. & USDA, Content Analysis Team. (2002). Promoting procedural justice and organizational commitment in natural resource decision processes via collaborative public involvement (p. 64).

Wilhite, B., Keller, M.J. & Hodges, J. (2002). Optimizing lifelong health and well-being through therapeutic recreation: An investigation of a practice model (p. 4).

Myron Floyd is an associate professor of recreation, parks and tourism at the University of Florida. Susan Stewart is a research social scientist at the USDA Forest Service, North Control Research Station in Evanston, Illinois, Direct correspondence regarding this column to Myron Floyd at [e-mail].