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The Global Journal of Health and Physical Education Pedagogy Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 77-80

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with disabilities (for example, see the recently edited book by Human Kinetics [2010] titled Inclusive Recreation: Programs and Services for Diverse Populations). Although I have deep respect for Dr. Douglas Kleiber and Dr. Susan Hutchinson, I would summarize their chapter

“Making the Best of a Bad Situation: The Value of Leisure in Coping with Negative Life Events” (Chapter 15) the same way. It’s a great chapter that outlines how leisure can be used in coping with negative life events grounded in academic referencing of research. However, there is nothing that ventures outside of the safe confines of the leisure discipline. Leisure as a source of positive escape, hope, self-restoration, personal transformation, and support are common research results that have been known for some time (e.g., Mannell & Kleiber, 1997).

I found this same pattern repeated in most of the chapters and would not identify this book as transdisciplinary writing.¹

With that said, however, Leisure, Health, and Wellness is a solid academic book that can be used in various undergraduate level classes to help students understand how leisure can have beneficial outcomes related to health and wellness. Although it does not travel outside of the margins of the leisure discipline—as the editors claim in the preface—it does provide a contemporary academic overview of the “good news” of the positive relationship of leisure to health and wellness that undergraduate students will be able to understand.

Another aspect of Leisure, Health, and Wellness I struggled with is it’s alliance to the American “leisure society thesis” discourse that has recently been debated spiritedly in a series of articles in the World Leisure Journal (e.g., Aitchison, 2010; Dieser, 2011; Godbey, 2010;

Rojek, 2010a, 2010b, 2010c; Veal, 2011). The leisure society thesis is primarily an American viewpoint of leisure, which defines the essence of leisure as freedom, free time, and freedom of choice and pretends that leisure is not positioned in larger sociological ideologies and contexts.

For example, in the first chapter of Leisure, Health, and Wellness—which provides an overview of leisure for the entire book—Chick explains that although freedom of choice in leisure is relative (with minor obligation) leisure is commonly defined as a state of mind and writes,

“Freedom of choice, intrinsic motivation, and enjoyment appear to be generally accepted by leisure researchers as conditions of the leisure experience (p. 4). As many European and sociological leisure scholars have outlined, freedom and freedom of choice are always situated in location and context (culture) associated with power and ideology (e.g., economic, social, cultural, and political forces) (e.g., Henry, 2001; Roberts, 2006; Rojek, 2005, 2010b; Veal, 2010); leisure is not freedom of choice as so many American academic profess. For example, Wearing (1998) portrayed leisure as rooted in the sociological ideologies of hegemonic struggles of gender, and Critcher (2006) argues that social context of social class is the primary way in which contemporary leisure should be understood. Veal (2010) outlined how leisure is different when positioned in political ideologies, such as neo-liberalism, Marxism, democratic socialism, conservatism, and social democracy. As Rojek (2005, 2010b) has outlined, there is no freedom in leisure because leisure is always situated in larger, and sometimes invisible, sociological conditions and ideologies. This is concerning because this unimodal view of leisure as freedom of choice provides students with an inaccurate view that leisure is free of social context/ideologies and does not provide a transdisciplinary or interdisciplinary view regarding the ubiquitous concept of leisure.

The last concern I have with Leisure, Health, and Wellness lies with the writing structure.

1I want to make it perfectly clear that Drs. Devine, Kleiber, and Hutchinson are wise and highly regarded scholars that I personally have learned much from over the years. My critique of their chapters lies with the misalignment of the stated goal that Leisure, Health, and Wellness: Making the Connection has transdisciplinary writing that steps outside of the boundaries of the field of leisure studies.

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This book was written for an American audience. In the United States, most leisure studies programs are located within the human sciences which almost always expect writing to follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (now in its sixth edition).

I am not sure why this book did not follow the APA publication manual. Often when I have students ask me how to reference an article—both in the body of a paragraph and on the reference page—I point them to various academic books that follow the APA publication manual and show them examples. For example, if I were teaching an undergraduate class and used Leisure, Health, and Wellness as a required textbook and had an assignment for students to write a 10-page paper regarding how leisure is related to health and wellness, I would have students following the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. However, I can easily see how students could become confused on how to write a paper using the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association when their required textbook uses another publication style.

In conclusion, I find Leisure, Health, and Wellness to have strengths and weaknesses. The strength of this edited book is that it is a solid academic book that can be used in various undergraduate level classes to help students understand how leisure can have beneficial outcomes related to health and wellness. However, the weakness is that is clings to an American “leisure society thesis” discourse which pretends that leisure is not positioned in larger sociological ideologies and context, which provides students with an inaccurate view that leisure is freedom of choice. Furthermore, although Leisure, Health, and Wellness provides a useful overview of how leisure is connected to health and wellness, it does not set out to do what the editors suggest—it does not venture outside of the safe confines of the leisure disciplines in writing transdiciplinary chapters. In fact, Leisure, Health, and Wellness is an edited book that is rooted in the safe boundaries of leisure scholarship from an American leisure society perspective, which does not provide a transdisciplinary or interdisciplinary perspective regarding the concept of leisure.

References

Aitchison, C. (2010). Labouring the leisure society thesis: A commentary on Rojek’s “Leisure and emotional intelligence.” World Leisure Journal, 52(4), 265–269.

Critcher, C. (2006). A touch of class. In C. Rojek, S. M. Shaw, & A. J. Veal (Eds.), A handbook of leisure studies (pp. 271–287). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Dattilo, J. (1994). Inclusive leisure services: Responding to the rights of people with disabilities.

State College, PA: Venture.

Dieser, R. B. (2011). Of straw men and melting pots: A response to Cara Aitchison’s (2010)

"Labouring the leisure society thesis…." World Leisure Journal, 53(1), 228–239.

Godbey, G. (2010). The end of leisure? A commentary on Rojek’s “Leisure and emotional intel-ligence.” World Leisure Journal, 52(4), 270–273.

Henry, I. P. (2001). The politics of leisure policy (2nd ed). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Human Kinetics. (2010). Inclusive recreation: Programs and services for diverse populations.

Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Mannell, R. C., & Kleiber, D. A. (1997). A social psychology of leisure. State College, PA:

Venture.

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Roberts, K. (2006). Leisure in contemporary society. Wallingford: CABI.

Rojek, C. (2005). Leisure theory: Principles and practice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Rojek, C. (2010a). Leisure and emotional labour: Leisure and emotional intelligence. World Leisure Journal, 52(4), 240–252.

Rojek, C. (2010b). The labour of leisure. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

Rojek, C. (2010c). Leisure and emotional intelligence: A response to my commentators. World Leisure Journal, 52(4), 274–278.

Veal, A. J. (2010). Leisure, sport and tourism, politics, policy and planning (3rd ed.). Walling-ford: CABI.

Veal, A. J. (2011). The leisure society thesis I: Myths and misconceptions, 1960–1979. World Leisure Journal, 53(1), 206–227.

Wearing, B. (1998). Leisure and feminist theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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