Building Communities Through Leisure: Citizen Participation in a Healthy Communities Initiative

The Exploration of the Relationship between Participation in Organized Activity and Cross-Group Friendships

“…Other studies have documented the various benefits of volunteering from a serious leisure perspective (e.g., Arai & Pedlar, 1997;Cassie & Halpenny, 2003;Stebbins, 2007 An interesting finding in the present study is that the participant's GPA did not significantly impact cross-group friendships. Students with higher GPAs tended to be more actively involved in school-related extracurricular activities.…”

Examining the Effects of Perceptions of Community and Recreation Participation on Quality of Life

“…Allen and Gibson (1987) outlined a number of community elements such as: leisure opportunities, economic conditions, educational opportunities, social opportunities, government and public services, medical facilities, and community involvement and support. Researchers have suggested a number of antecedents to these three aspects of quality of life: recreation participation (Allen, 1991;Allen and Beattie, 1984;Csikszentmihalyi, 1990;Godbey, 1999;Iso-Ahola, 1980;Kelly, 1987), community involvement (Arai and Pedlar, 1997;Bhattacharyya, 1995), and community residency (Sampson, 1988;Sampson, 1991;Sampson and Groves, 1989). However, none of these studies have empirically tested a theoretical model that simultaneously examines all of the above factors that have been shown to influence quality of life in order to gain further insight into relationship between these factors.…”

“…Building on previous work by Allen (1991) and Arai and Pedlar (1997), this study develops and tests a model that integrates both objective (observable facets of social functioning or place-centered conditions) and subjective (individual's degree of satisfaction with their activities and lives in general or person-centered experiences) components of quality of life (Cummins, 2000;Nelson et al, 1992). Examination of the impact of both objective and subjective components of quality of life and constructs that measure community perceptions, should provide greater insights into factors that have the most direct effect on quality of life of community residents.…”

Demand for Water-based Leisure Activity

“…15 It is clear from these estimates that the public's valuation of water-based resources is very high. The total value of water-based marine leisure activity is likely to be substantially higher, as the estimates above relate to day-trip activity for four leisure activities only, excluding overnight trips and activities such as inland water angling and nature observation.…”

“…Less obvious than the economic benefits of leisure activity is the importance of recreation in social infrastructures. Social interaction is among the most frequently reported reasons for participation in leisure activities (Auld & Case, 1997) and participation in leisure activity leads to community building (Arai & Pedlar, 1997). Leisure opportunities are also an important determinant of people's perception of quality of life (Jefferes & Dobos, 1993), while family participation in leisure activities has positive effects on family interaction, satisfaction and stability (Orthner & Mancini, 1990).…”