Sociology of Leisure: A reader

Sociology of Leisure A Reader Edited by C.Critcher, P.Bramham and A.Tomlinson Essay Guidelines The aim of this supplementary material is to help lecturers map out the main debates and issues that students should address when tackling the questions at the end of each of the five parts of the book. An element of prescription on the part of the editors is inevitable. It is taken for granted that students will draw upon the arguments developed by the different ’classic’ extracts in each of the parts. Indeed, the bulk of the questions posed at the end of each part are usually direct quotes from authors included in the reader. Students therefore would be expected to cover the material within the reader, as well as drawing upon additional teaching material provided by lecturers during the course of study as well as drawing on the sociology of mainstream or leisure studies textbooks and journals. Lecturers are encouraged to develop their own criteria for assessing essays and to share and agree these with students. One example of assessment criteria is included below:

In the essay, students should 1. Demonstrate a ’sociological imagination’—a critical awareness and application of relevant theoretical debates in social analysis. 2. Draw on the teaching and empirical material used in the course to illustrate the debates within a particular conceptual area—around issues of power, race, class, and gender. 3. Provide examples within a leisure context to explore the generic issues and debates from social analysis, and when relevant, draw on their own personal biographies. 4. Provide a clear coherent structure, chain of reasoning or progression of ideas to the essay. Display organised, logical and literate expression. 5. Write in essay form, using correct referencing, acknowledgements, using non-sexist, non-racist language, either in first person or third person singular. Abide by university/college regulations on plagiarism and late submission of work.

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Part One: Contemporary Trends

Q1. Roberts argues that ’Britain in the 1980s has become a more polarised society’. With reference to evidence on leisure participation and trends assess the validity of this statement.

Answers should demonstrate an awareness of the different dimensions to inequality in the UK—social, political and economic. Reference should be made to the changing patterns of employment (full-time, part-time and unemployment); income distribution (taxation— direct, indirect, corporate, wealth ownership, public subsidies and income support) and changing family structures (single parents, homelessness and community care). Some commentators suggest an undermining of the welfare state with privatisation and deregulation leading to a ’two-thirds-one third’ division between the rich and poor. All indicators of social policy demonstrate that there have been growing inequalities during the 1990s—with the ’haves’ becoming richer, whereas the ’have-nots’ have seen their standard of living remain stationary or in decline. These economic divisions are also reflected in spatial divisions with a northsouth divide nationally and divisions between rural, suburban, inner city and gentrified city centres. Students must refer to recent Social Trends, Mintel or Henley Centre for Forecasting surveys for social class differences in the various leisure sectors— sports, arts, countryside recreation, consuming, gambling and tourism. Q2. Drawing on your own observations and experiences in leisure, discuss recent trends in ’connoisseur leisure’.

Answers to this question depend heavily upon the student’s own personal biography, as Bishop and Hoggett (1986) stress the importance of local enthusiasms and define connoisseur leisure as an integral part of local communities, with subcultures that contribute to democratic processes. Consequently, they view ’leisure enthusiasts’ as providing ’mutual aid’ in leisure.

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Good answers will locate many important developments in leisure tastes and enthusiasms related to postmodern culture: home-centredness, body image, new technologies as well as marketing, commercial sponsorship, etc. Students should draw on the work of Bourdieu, mediated and popularised by the work of Mike Featherstone and others, to explore the aesthetics of the new middle class (or service class) with its interest in tastes and fashions. Leisure may then be seen as a site for distinctive life-styles, conspicuous display and enthusiastic leisure involvement. Q3. What determines the place of leisure on the UK political agenda?

Students should demonstrate the historical context of the leisure debate, with the 1960s heralding a ’leisure revolution’ and a commitment to leisure education, the 1970s integrated leisure service departments, whereas this vision of a leisure society has faded and the 1990s have witnessed a growing commitment to the work ethic, with fears about unemployment. Students should outline the pluralist view of the state in capitalism; the political agenda is set by the configuration of political parties responding to diverse interest groups demands. As free time, and also as part of a project of rational recreation, leisure has been dealt with ’at arm’s length’ via government quangos, which may also be seen as interest groups, in their own right, trying to put leisure on to the government’s agenda for legislation. Good answers will outline other policy analyses of elites within central and local levels of governments who pursue their own agenda—driven by pragmatism, civic pride, empire building and facility-led provision. Leisure may be forced on to the political agenda by crisis—such as social disorders around football hooligans or stadium safety, or New Age travellers converging on Stonehenge or rave parties, see Rojek (1989). Q4. Roberts notes that ’Spending on leisure services was not actually cut by the Thatcher administrations’. Why should leisure expenditure be exempted by a government committed to controlling public expenditure?

Students should acknowledge that the PSBR and public expenditure as a proportion of GNP remained constant at 42% during 1979–1990. Answers require a discussion of the restructuring of state expenditure and priorities. For example, O’Connor (1973) argues that the state justifies its role by investing in ’collective consumption’ (housing, education, health and leisure) or in ’social expenses’ (e.g. law and order, policing etc.) Henry (1993) argues that there has been a shift from general community-based welfare expenditure for social integration (collective consumption), on to targeted inner-city projects (social order) with a move in the 1990s towards leisure as a economic force for restructuring and revitalising cities.

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Students should outline Roberts’ (1978) three major reasons for state intervention in leisure: * landuse planning—mediating conflicting claims of different interest groups * externalities gained such as health, national prestige, education etc * control of anti-social behaviour e.g. licensing certain forms of leisure which may interfere with the freedom of others to pursue their own interests To conclude, Thatcherism represents a fusion of market-led liberalism and law and order conservatism, so that leisure can serve as a reward for hard work and for its various externalities. Q5. What are the arguments for and against a ’Ministry of Leisure’?

Students should acknowledge that the arguments for and against a Ministry of Leisure were rehearsed as long ago as 1973 and can be found in the House of Lords Select Committee debate at that time. In an era of expanding welfare provision, a Ministry would have provided a coherent integrated leisure policy, rather than the seven separate ministries responsible for leisure and leisure relevant policies. It would then have been possible to plan services rather than an ’ad hoc’ pragmatic approach to policy development. As much of commercial leisure provision is by powerful multinationals operating within oligopolistic conditions, a powerful single ministry could provide a counterbalance to existing vested interests. Within the government, a powerful charismatic Minister could protect leisure interests at Cabinet level and resist the demands of high spending departments such as health, education, and social security. Students should rehearse the arguments against a Ministry of Leisure which focus on the centralisation of state power and intervention. Anti-state thinkers felt that a Ministry of Leisure would result in political direction of what ought to be autonomous voluntary organisations, [see Bishop and Hoggett (1986) and Scruton (1983)] which would be subverted into state organisations as in state socialist societies. Some writers feel that the current Department of National Heritage has no coherent rationale, was created to satiate Mellor’s political aspirations and could be trivialised as the ’Ministry of Fun’.

Further Reading Bishop, J. and Hoggett, P. (1986) Organising Around Enthusiasms, Comedia Dunleavy, P. and O’Leary, Theories of the State, MacMillan Featherstone, M. (1991) Consumer Culture and Postmodernism, Sage Henry, I.P. (1993) The Politics of Leisure Policy, MacMillan Rojek, C. (1989) Leisure for Leisure?, Tavistock

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Scruton, R. (1983) The Meaning of Conservatism, Penguin Seabrook, J. (1988) The Leisure Society, Blackwell Social Trends (1994) No.24 Central Statistical Office, HMSO

Part Two: Leisure and Common Experiences

Q1 Of the three influences on leisure—work, family and the life-cycle—which one do you consider exerts most influence and why?

Students should debate the work of Parker (1971, 1983) which stresses the importance of work/paid employment in defining leisure interests—extension, opposition and neutrality, yet the centrality of work ignores housewives, students, unemployed and the retired. The picture becomes more complicated with more flexible work contracts, one or more part-time jobs, the informal economy, voluntary work, caring and neighbouring responsibilities. The next part of the answer should cover the work of Rapoport and Rapoport (1975) who emphasised the domestic age of people and the stage in the family cycle: each phase generates different sets of interests, preoccupations and leisure activities. Roberts (1978) too, stresses the importance of lifecycle and generations in sociological analysis. The young generation growing up in the 1980s and 1990s are less dominated by the work ethic and being part of mass youth cultures overrides family constraints/home-centredness and established work cultures of the parent generation. Students should evaluate the Rapoports’ argument that individuals construct and negotiate a balance between work/family and leisure and that this changes during the individual’s lifecycle. To conclude, rather than being exclusive, all three shape leisure in different configurations and different historical settings. According to Clarke and Critcher (1985) it is essential to stress class relations rather than the importance of work. In contrast, feminist analysis would stress the centrality of gender roles within the family and the ways in which ideologies of sexuality and gender permeate all parts of people’s lives. Moorhouse (in Rojek: 1989) highlights the problematic nature of defining both work and leisure. Q2 Kelly suggests that ’family interaction is itself the dominant form of leisure for adults living in nuclear families’. Outline the evidence supporting this statement and discuss its implications for leisure policies and practices.

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Students should draw upon Roberts’ (1978) demand for a sociological approach to understanding leisure rather than conventional recreation theory which focuses on activities. It is therefore essential to pay more attention to the social context and networks within which free time and leisure takes place. To support Kelly’s assertion students could draw on Rojek’s (1989) emphasis on the growing privatisation (alongside pacification/individuation/ commercialisation) and home-centred nature of family leisure. Mention should be made of Glyptis’ (1989) empirical work with evidence from time-space diaries on the centrality of family and home based leisure, particularly during child rearing and in retirement. Students should refer to Social Trends (1994) which documents the growing numbers of single person and single parent households and that the traditional nuclear family of two adults and two children now represent only a very small minority of house arrangements (15%). Students should argue that family leisure is also characterised by segregated roles, in that men have active leisure life-styles, whereas women have less independence after marriage (yet this is mediated by domestic age, class, car ownership, and so on). Students should refer to market surveys that document the growth in ’cellular’ family leisure/holidays, with growing individualism within the nuclear family with differentiated tastes. Good students will draw on examples in leisure policy and (often local government) practices which have acknowledged the diversity of family styles and caring responsibilities, particularly within ethnic-minority communities. Q3 How useful is the concept of play in understanding leisure within family networks?

Students should define play, following Caillois: play demonstrates non-serious rule governed behaviour, within distinct time-space boundaries. Within modernity, families provide the main site and context, (cultural, emotional and material) for child’s play and socialisation. Families provide a ’natural’ social network to develop leisure tastes—in sport, arts, recreation, tourist visits and so on. This is clearly demonstrated during the weekend, breaks and family holidays. Students should discuss current changes in cultural tastes, linked to the postmodern; these celebrate playfulness, pastiche and parody. Good answers will draw on a feminist perspective, and discuss family and family networks as the site for women of domestic work, servicing the leisure needs of others. Q4 What key issues confront social science researchers interested in the leisure lifestyles of the elderly in the UK?

A good answer would acknowledge that leisure studies have neglected research into the elderly. Students should outline the main reason for this neglect—lack of economic resources, yet there are a growing proportion of WOOPIES (Well Off

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Older People), lack of power because of ageism which is omnipresent yet rarely challenged, lack of status, especially of elderly women and so on. Students should discuss problems of definition too: how should we define the ’elderly’? in terms of chronological age, biological ageing or life stage—such as retirement? Students should review current research into leisure participation; leisure research has been about physical activity, with the elderly exhibiting lower rates of participation in all activities. This is, in part, an historical expression of the cohort tastes when growing old and, in part, a function of other factors, such as ill-health, poverty and lack of car ownership. Good answers will discuss the general research problems (of reliability and validity) confronting all types of social science research. When studying the elderly, it is difficult to secure longitudinal studies, adequate pre-retirement samples, cross-sectional data sets. There is usually a substantial age gap between the researcher and the research sample, who may also suffer problems in terms of mental capacity and alertness, accuracy of recall. Q5 The task of the ’sociological imagination’ is to link people’s individual experiences with wider common structural processes. Is it accurate then to argue that the choice of leisure life-styles is simply a private matter?

Students need to discuss the nature of the sociological imagination. C.W.Mills (1971) demands sociology which avoids abstract theory and mindless empiricism, that links ’personal troubles’ and ‘public issues’. He argues that the sociological imagination encourages us to take a historical perspective to understand the processes of change within societies. We should be able to make connections between ’private troubles’ and ’public issues’ i.e. to understand the social, cultural and structural context within which we live our lives. Abrams (1982) makes a similar demand for an historical sociology—relating issues of agency and structure, social change etc. to an historical context. Good answers demand a critical evaluation of the concept of ’life-style’. Giddens (1991) argues that life-style is all about choice; we are forced to make choices about partners, jobs, diet, clothes in the conditions of late modernity. In respect of leisure, Veal (1989, 1993) stresses the importance of life-style, seeing status groups as expressions of distinctive consumption, which are exclusive and distinguish themselves from other groups, hence life-style has an important social dimension and context. In conclusion, the precise boundaries between the private and the public are contested (viz feminist politics which argues that the ’personal is political’) and in liberal democracies people are keen to stress the individuality and privacy of leisure choices. Q6 How do gender relationships find their expression in family leisure?

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Students should evaluate feminist studies that stress the centrality of gender relations in shaping people’s experiences both within the private and the public spheres. Historically there has been a strong sexual division of labour within the family, with traditional assumptions about male breadwinners and women taking the major responsibility for domestic work (child care, shopping, organising meals). Students should discuss the problematic nature of the ’family’. Gender assumptions have been the cornerstone of postwar welfare state policies yet, in the 1990s, two thirds of married women work and women generally (including housewives) have less free time than men (even those men who are unemployed and retired). Talbot (1979) argues that women service the needs of other members of the family, are often involved as spectators with regard to sports and rarely have independent leisure time. Students should review the current leisure studies literature on women and leisure. Family and domestic responsibilities constrain women’s leisure, in a different way from men’s leisure. Gender stereotypes shape what is defined as suitable leisure for women. Talbot and Dixey’s study (1982) of bingo stresses the need for women to ’get out of the house’ and into a safe ’female’ environment of the local bingo club.

Further Reading Glyptis, S. (1989) Unemployment and Leisure, Open University Haywood, L. et al. (1995) Understanding Leisure (2nd edition), Stanley Thornes Giddens, A. (1991) Social Identity and Modernity, Polity Rojek, C. (1989) Leisure For Leisure, Tavistock Veal, A.J. (1993) ’The Concept of Lifestyle:a review’, Leisure Studies, Vol.12, p 233–252 Veal, A.J. (1989) ’Leisure Lifestyle and Status: a pluralist framework for analysis’, Leisure Studies, Vol 8, p 141–151

Part Three: Leisure and Social Relations

Ql Critically evaluate the explanations suggested for either the prominence of AfroCaribbean males in competitive sport or the apparent failure of the youth service to cater adequately for the needs of Asian girls. Students need to outline the major arguments around racial and ethnic stereotyping, role models and labelling. Structuralist approaches stress the importance of institutional racism in shaping ’black’ experience whereas agency approaches emphasise the importance of cultural difference, with ethnic minorities constructing their own identities around language, clothes, music, and sports. In the case of black male athletes, Cashmore (1991) and Carrington et al (1987) emphasise the importance of school stereotyping with teacher and pupil expectations leading black youth to colonise sport as part of the school extracurriculum. Cashmore argues that black youth are winners at sport yet losers at school; black sports are the litmus test of a racist society. Maguire (in Jarvie: 1991) has discussed ’stacking’ within team sports, with black players located in non-central positions. In the case of Asian girls, different stereotypes and assumptions operate about Asian experience, especially the importance of Muslim culture and patriarchy on young women’s opportunities. Students should provide a brief historical overview of youth work in that it has traditionally been male-centred with sports and recreation activities. In the 1980s there has been a growth in issue-based work with girls, ethnic minorities, AIDS/HIV and the 1990s has argued for informal community-based education. Raval (1989) has argued that leisure studies have failed to understand Asian culture and women’s position within the UK. Q2 How convinced are you that white middle-class males are the most privileged group in leisure?

The structural processes of class, race and gender inequalities suggest that students should agree with the above assertion. Indeed, some writers (including Veblen

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and Bourdieu) argue that leisure is an important site for class divisions to express themselves. Students should discuss the nature and the dimensions of privilege (both material and cultural) in terms of access to both time, space, money as well as cultural competence from education, family and community networks. Students should review sports, recreation and leisure statistics which document the dominance of white professionals in most activities. Students should review the constraints that operate on other groups which are excluded from participation because of sexism, racism or status differentiation. It is important to acknowledge the debate about the changing nature of class difference in the UK and that the middle class is fragmented in terms of patterns of employment, family status, sexuality and age. Q3 ’Sociologists have overemphasised the importance of social class in understanding leisure in the UK’. Discuss.

The student should acknowledge the problematic concept of class in social analysis; some reference should be made to the traditional debate about the legacy of Marx (around issues of production) and Weber analysis of class and life-style (around issues of consumption). The answer should review attempts to operationalise class using occupation, income, home-ownership and different methodological/theoretical debates surrounding qualitative and quantitative techniques. Students should provide a critical assessment of literature relating class and leisure with reference to Parker on work-leisure patterns, Clarke & Critcher on class culture and context of leisure, and feminist critiques of mainstream leisure studies. Good answers will provide an evaluation of Roberts’ contribution—the importance of other mediating factors and Veal’s exposition of an alternative pluralist view. Q4 What contribution has feminist analysis made to your understanding of leisure?

Students should highlight the general feminist critique of leisure studies which renders women and women’s experience of leisure invisible. Students should discuss the major perspectives within feminist analysis (radical feminist, liberal feminist, Marxist feminist and socialist feminist) and identify the context within which they developed, outlining the key concepts and theorists associated with the four particular perspectives. Students must review empirical research informed by key feminist perspectives, for example, Talbot (1979), Deem (1986) Green et al. (1990) and summarise their general conclusions. Feminist analysis suggests a holistic approach to understanding ’leisure’ within women’s everyday experience.

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Good answers will outline criticisms by drawing from other theoretical traditions: for example, Moorhouse (1989) and Rojek (1991) and current developments in feminism and post-feminism, Scraton (1994) to understanding the world of women and leisure. Q5 ’Racism is a central feature of the leisure experience of black people in the UK’. Discuss.

Students must introduce different historical and structural analyses of race and racism in UK viz. Marxist accounts, Sivanandan, Clarke & Critcher et al. The essay must also contrast these with agency/cultural accounts of ethnicity viz Flemming (in Jarvie: 1991), Carrington et al. on Asian leisure Good answers will evaluate the demand for synthesis of agency and structure viz Pryce (1986), Gilroy (1978), Bradford Youth Survey (1987), Raval (1989) which highlights both structural constraints and space for human agency within the construction of race and leisure. Q6 ’The concept of youth must be interrogated by the processes of class, race and gender. Nothing illustrates this more clearly than youth leisure life-styles’. Discuss.

The student should be able to demonstrate an historical awareness of the social and political context surrounding young people in the postwar period. This involves an outline of the theoretical debates surrounding the emergence of youth cultures and the moral panics surrounding youth leisure life-styles, with particular attention to the work of the CCCS and Phil Cohen’s analysis of changing working-class community. Good students will highlight the weakness of spectacular subcultural research and the contribution that gender, see Griffin (1986) and McCabe (1985) and race issues, Gilroy (1987, 1991) make to understanding different conditions, Willis (1987) facing young people, how young people ’grow up ordinary’. Roberts (1994) has emphasised the plurality of youth responses to the transitions into adulthood. Q7 What evidence is there to suggest there is a ’harried leisure class’ in the UK?

This question encourages students to problematise the concept of a ’harried leisure class’ as developed by Veblen (1929) and developed more narrowly by Linder (1970). This demands reviewing debates surrounding changing patterns of work and leisure participation in activities. Good students will map out the general debate about the lack of emergence of a leisure society. Following Gorz (1985) new technologies seem not to have increased leisure but have increased work-time for the core workers, meant full unemployment for others and also commodified domestic work so that a new underclass services the needs of the busy and wealthy.

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To conclude, changing work patterns, [see Schor, J.B. (1993) The Overworked American, Basic Books], have meant busy work schedules for middle classes. According to Seabrook (1988) they have kept work for themselves and therefore use work pressures to legitimate conspicuous busy leisure life-styles, holidays etc.

Further Reading Gilroy, P. (1987) There ain’t no Black in the Union Jack, Hutchinson Gorz, A. (1985) Pathways to Paradise,Pluto Press Jarvie, G. (1991) Sport, Racism and Ethnicity, Falmer Press Raval, S. (1989) ‘Gender, Leisure and Sport: A Case Study of young people of Southern Asian Descent—A Response, Leisure Studies, 8(3) p 237–240 Rojek, C. (1985) Capitalism and Leisure Theory, Tavistock Sivanandan, A. (1990) Communities of Resistance: Writings on Black Struggles for Socialism, Verso

Part Four: Types of Leisure Provision

Q1 With reference to a detailed case study of a club or a voluntary activity from either your own experience or available literature, discuss Bishop and Hoggett’s observations on ’the key elements which serve to distinguish communal leisure from other areas of activity’.

Students should identify the four elements of what Bishop and Hoggett term communal leisure as being self-organised, characterised by mutual aid/ reciprocity, produced for one’s own consumption amongst friends and neighbours. The core of ’enthusiasms’ is their collective nature, whose prime purpose is leisure. Students should draw a distinction between communal leisure and ’fraternities’ and adult education classes, although the boundaries can be blurred. The nature of the answer demands very much on the particular ’enthusiasm’ chosen— whether sports, arts, crafts or hobbies. Students may be encouraged to draw on shared material e.g. Channel Four’s Cutting Edge Programme: The Golf Club 1993 and analyse the race, gender and class dimensions of an exclusive golf club in the South East of England, in relation to Bishop and Hoggett’s analysis. Good students will draw out the symbolic boundaries, Cohen (1985) which signify club membership, analysing club membership, democracy and the social identity of the club and its distinctive relationship with its locality and other clubs. Q2 There can be little doubt that public bodies like the Sports Council and the Countryside Commission have underrepresented working class people and reflected mainly middle-class interests’ (Wilson). With reference to current data on participation as well as provision, assess the validity of this judgement.

Students should analyse current data from GHS, Social Trends, Henley Centre for Forecasting to confirm that working class groups (defined in terms of manual socio-economic occupation) have lower rates of participation in physical exercise, sports and countryside recreations. There are some minor exceptions to

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a simple class gradient in certain leisure activities, for example angling, darts and aerobics. A good answer would note that those who do participate regularly and intensely in sports and countryside recreations still constitute a small minority of the total population. Research by Roberts et al. (1991) Inner City Sport—Who Benefits? challenges many stereotypes about sports participation—once working people are involved in sport they participate at similar rates to middle class groups. Coalter (1993) stresses that price is not a major determinant of sport participation. Students should review the arguments of key writers who would support the class bias of quangos such as the Sports Council and the Countryside Commission viz Shoard (1987), Whannel (1983), Hargreaves (1986). Students should provide a brief review of the histories of both agencies, their memberships and significant shifts in policy positions. The Sports Council policies face the contradictory pressure of elite performance and mass participation, whilst preserving the freedom of the individual, choices exercise through the market. The Countryside Commission faces the contradiction of increasing access and promoting recreation, set against pressures for conservation and maintaining the status quo of landownership and use. The ’selective tradition’ of quango policy is best expressed in Hutchinson’s (1982) The Politics of the Arts Council. Q3 Describe the conditions which allow, in the holiday industry, ’relative ease of entry into and exit out of the big league’ (Thompson), and consider whether such conditions prevail in the sports industry.

Students should summarise the main elements of Thompson’s article which documents a highly competitive market despite four major firms dominating half of the overseas holiday business. The holiday business is characterised by consumer choice of tour or self-organised holidays at home or abroad, with thin and unstable profit margins and low returns on capital, even relative to the generally poor performance of UK businesses. Good students will problematise the concept of the ’sport industry’ and discuss the various elements that contribute to the configuration of sport— performers, coaches, spectators, owners, media conglomerates and sponsors. Generic arguments for sport as a whole may not apply to a particular sporting form. Following Thompson’s analysis, students should discuss the following factors: market conditions—new markets, new products, new market segments or is the sporting form a mature market or in decline?; market and capital concentration— is there vertical integration or diversification amongst major firms? see Henry (1990). Good students could outline the parallels that exist within the sport shoe/ trainer industry and the ways in which Nike and Reebock have competed for market share.

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Q4 ’No political party in Britain has a clear policy for sport’ (Whannel). Discuss the current validity of such an assertion, with reference to the present day.

Students should outline the main elements in Whannel’s assertion with sports policy shaped by ministerial whim, local authority rationales and expenditures and nationally by funds administered through the Sports Council. The sports policy that has emerged during the 1970s and 1980s has nevertheless enjoyed a broad party political consensus to fund the Sports Council and to develop ’arm’s length’ pragmatic policies. Shared partisan support sport does not imply ideological consensus because different parties perceive the value of sport per se differently as well as the externalities it provides—national prestige, health, physical fitness and social order within inner city communities. Good answers will highlight the increasing vulnerability of Sports Council funding and organisation, the growing pressure from the New Right for private commercial sponsorship and ’Value for money’, particularly for elite sport as well as the recent impact of the Sport Foundation and National Lottery as new non-partisan sources of sport funding. Q5 Using Finnegan’s concept of ’pathways’, consider how leisure can be seen as a source of meaning in a confusing modern world.

Students should outline the key ideas underpinning the concept of ’pathways’ which sensitises cultural analysis to the fact that cultural forms and traditions are not automatically reproduced by the next generation but need to be actively constructed— cultural pathways need to be rediscovered and revitalised by the next generation. Good students will draw on the work of Giddens’ structural theory to argue that modernity means that social relations are stretched by new technologies and ’expert systems’ e.g. computers, cars, telephone, fax etc.; what Giddens clumsily terms, time-space distanciation. Following the analysis of Bishop and Hoggett (1986) leisure provides one of the few sites within which individuals can develop their social identities within democratic collective and local cultural forms. Students could then draw on current leisure studies literature around enthusiasms (e.g.allotments, sports subcultures etc.) to illustrate the centrality of these playworlds within the constraints of late modernity. The work of Gorz (1985, 1989) provides a critical Marxist approach which places leisure at the centre of meaningful relationships within late modernity or late capitalism. Other postmodern writers stress the importance of choosing distinctive leisure lifestyles in postmodernity.

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Further Reading Gratton, C. and Taylor, P. (1985) Sport and Recreation: An economic analysis, E & FN Spon Hargreaves, John (1986) Sport, Power and Culture, Routledge Hargreaves, J. (1994) Sporting Females, Routledge Haywood, L. (1994) Community Leisure and Recreation, Butterworth and Heinemann Henry, I. P. (1990) Management and Planning in the Leisure Industries, Macmillan Hey, V. (1986) Patriarchy and Pub Culture, Tavistock

Part Five: Theories and Prognostications

Q1 Compare and contrast any two of the pluralist, Marxist and feminist theories of leisure, explaining which you find the most convincing and why.

Students should map out the key elements of two of the perspectives: pluralist arguments emphasise freedom in leisure, market processes and diverse taste publics; Marxism stresses class inequality, cultural control, whereas feminism highlights the importance of gender relations, ideologies of patriarchy and constraint. Whichever two perspectives are chosen, students should summarise the main arguments offered by key writers—pluralist: Roberts (1978), Kelly (1981), Veal (1989); Marxist: Clarke and Critcher (1985), Hargreaves (1986) Gruneau (1988) and feminist: Deem (1986), Wimbush and Talbot (1988), Green, et al. (1990). Students should discuss the underdetermination of facts by theory and hence the scope for different theories to interpret the ’facts of leisure’ differently; equally, theories conceptualise leisure in different ways and seek to collect different facts about leisure practices. To conclude, students need to justify their own choice of theory depending on their own biographies, their sociological imagination and the claims that each theoretical perspective makes on rational analysis, coherence and comprehensive treatment of the facts of leisure. Good students should relate the three separate perspectives to three ways of theorising as identified by Rojek (1993): professionalisation in 1960s (pluralist), politicisation in 1970s and 1980s (Marxist and feminist) and more recently, postmodern thinking in the 1990s. Q2 What are the major problems in predicting the future of leisure?

Students should summarise briefly the ten main techniques of forecasting outlined by Veal (1987) (Extract 24) speculation, trend extrapolation, respondent assessment, the Delphi technique, scenario writing, the comparative method, spatial models, cross-sectional analysis and composite methods. Each technique has its own associated problems that relate to the nature of the activities e.g.

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confined or unconfined, capital or labour intensive, patterns of demand from residential neighbourhoods, models of leisure trips and so on. Good answers will highlight the need for detailed information on changes in the structure of the population and changes in tastes. Good practice needs information about supply-side changes as well as demand changes hence the need for forecasters to rely on composite methods for predicting leisure trends. Q3 Critically evaluate the view that traditional theories, unlike ’green’ perspectives, fail to think about the impact of leisure practices on the environment.

Students should review the legacy of those traditional leisure research which did acknowledge the impact on the spatial environment of leisure practices, particularly those concerned with planning, access and management issues of sports/leisure centres, catchment areas and countryside recreation and conservation. This has been an important strand in the development of leisure studies, [see Home et al. (1987)] with leisure professionals often concerned with the management of ’unwholesome’ demand (e.g. saturation at peak times inside National Parks). Pluralist, feminist and Marxist perspectives do acknowledge the importance of context in shaping leisure experiences but that context has often neglected spatial dimensions of leisure. Good students would discuss the growing importance of understanding the rural, suburban, inner city and city centre context which shapes leisure experience, see Spink, J. (1994) Leisure and the Environment, Butterworth Heinemann. Recent trends in green tourism, eco-tourism etc. stress the importance of sustainable, renewable resources which are crucial for ’green’ consumers and market segments. Q4 ’During the 1960s experts were predicting the ’coming of a leisure revolution’. That prospect seems even more unlikely as UK society approaches the millennium’. Discuss.

Students should discuss the various theorists who have heralded the growth of leisure such as Bell (1976), Jenkins and Sherman (1979, 1981) and Stonier (1980). All writers predict a ’post-industrial’ society, with a decline in hours worked, a growing leisure ethic and a need for leisure education into new lifestyles. Students should document a growing work ethic during the 1980s with the globalisation of markets (particularly in financial services), flexibilisation of markets and a restructuring of welfare and income support. Good students will highlight the growing divisions within economic and social spheres, which some writers have described as Post-Fordism, others as postmodernity.

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Q5 ’In the future, work will no longer be an individual’s central life interest and, more importantly, neither will leisure’. Discuss.

Students should identify traditional research into work and leisure, Blauner (1964), Dubin (1966), Parker (1971, 1983) which posits work as a central life interest. Within the ’work-leisure’ couplet of this research tradition, leisure lifestyles reflected individual commitment or alienation from work. Rapoport (1975) suggests that people need to balance the conflicting demands of work, family and leisure. Students could refer to Young and Willmott (1973) which predicts a growing middle class leisure lifestyle. Good students will explore the work of Gorz (1985), Seabrook (1988) and Rojek (1993) suggesting that the boundaries between work and leisure are being redrawn. Writers such as Giddens (1991) and Bauman (1992) suggest that late modernity places individuals at the centre of ’the social’, as they seek to construct for themselves viable social identities in the face of chaos and diversity.

Further Reading Bauman, Z. (1992) Intimations of Postmodernity, Routledge Harris, D. (1992) From Class Struggle to the Politics of Pleasure, Routledge Hebdidge, D. (1990) Hiding in the Light, Comedia Henry, I. (1993) The Politics of Leisure Policy, MacMillan Rojek, C. (1993) Ways of Escape, MacMillan Shields, R. (1992) Lifestyle Shopping, Routledge