scholarly journals Parents’ role in adolescents’ leisure time use: From goals to parenting practices

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-62
Author(s):  
Annelore Van der Eecken ◽  
Bram Spruyt ◽  
Lieve Bradt

Inspired by Ann Swidler’s toolkit theory, this qualitative study aims to achieve a better understanding of social class differences in parenting practices and, in turn, in young people’s leisure time use. To that end, 32 semi-structured face-to-face interviews with parents from middle- and working-class families were conducted in a small city in Belgium. An inductive thematic analysis revealed substantial social class differences with respect to three parenting practices: (1) setting an example, (2) resolving conflicts and (3) facilitating leisure activities. The interviews showed that these differences were mainly linked to social class differences in parents’ resources: working-class parents more often lacked flexible time, financial resources, an extensive social network on which they could rely and the institutionally required attitudes, skills and experience to engage in the above-mentioned parenting practices. We conclude that young people’s (continued) institutional leisure participation puts high requirements on parents and not all (working-class) parents are able to live up to such requirements. In that way, contemporary leisure settings reproduce rather than mitigate inequality in the use of leisure time.

Author(s):  
Moyin Li ◽  
Nebiyou Tilahun

This study explored how disability, mobility, social and leisure engagement, and travel behavior influence older people’s life satisfaction. The study used the 2013 Disability and Use of Time data for people ages 50 years and older, many of whom reported physical impairments. The study developed a model that related life satisfaction with various time use, disability, and mobility variables. Summary statistics of time use showed that as people aged, they spent more time on solitary, passive leisure activities; social face-to-face time did not seem to change very much. Alone passive leisure time use was especially large for those who experienced a physical mobility-related disability and were carless. The study used an ordinal logistic regression and found that longer alone leisure time uses were associated with lower life satisfaction. Life satisfaction was positively affected by transportation variables, such as vehicle availability. The study also found that social face-to-face time use had a weak positive relationship with life satisfaction, and technology-mediated social activities had a strong negative relationship with life satisfaction.


2021 ◽  
pp. 001139212110485
Author(s):  
Trevor Tsz-lok Lee

As the global trend towards both middle- and working-class families raising their children intensively increases, social class differences in parenting beliefs and choices for their children have become more subtle. In light of the proliferation of intensive parenting norms, however, few studies have explored particular mechanisms underlying the subtle class differences linked to parental values. Drawing on in-depth interviews of 51 Hong Kong Chinese parents, this study investigated how parents contended with competing values in socialization, which in turn shaped their parenting choices. Three common values emerged from the interviews – academic excellence, hard work and happiness – showing that the middle and working classes managed their values for children in two different ways, termed here as ‘values coupling’ and ‘values juggling’, respectively. Middle-class parents were able to make their value choices cohesive through a ‘twist’ to reconcile between competing values. However, working-class parents were inclined to ‘drift’ their value choices in the face of unreconciled value tensions as well as structural constraints. Subtle differences in parental values were found to be tied to class position, and contributed to maintaining class inequality and social reproduction.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Rubin

Working-class students tend to be less socially integrated at university than middle-class students (Rubin, 2012a). The present research investigated two potential reasons for this working-class social exclusion effect. First, working-class students may have fewer finances available to participate in social activities. Second, working-class students tend to be older than middle-class students and, consequently, they are likely to have more work and/or childcare commitments. These additional commitments may prevent them from attending campus which, in turn, reduces their opportunity for social integration. These predictions were confirmed among undergraduate students at an Australian university (N = 433) and a USA university (N = 416). Strategies for increasing working-class students’ social integration at university are discussed.


1987 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Marjoribanks

This study examined relationships between family environments and the aspirations of 516 South Australian adolescents from six gender/social-class groups. Family environments were assessed initially when the adolescents were 11 years old when measures were obtained of parents' aspirations for their children and of their instrumental and affective orientations to learning. When the adolescents were 16 years old, their perceptions of their parents' support for learning and of their own aspirations were assessed. Regression surfaces were constructed from models that included terms to account for possible linear, interaction and curvilinear relationships. The findings suggested the propositions that parents' aspirations have a direct impact (a) on female adolescents' educational aspirations and (b) on the educational and occupational aspirations of male working-class adolescents, after considering the effect on aspirations of the adolescents' perceptions of parents' support. The results also indicated gender/social-class differences in the relationships between family environments and adolescents' aspirations.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Rubin

The present research tested the hypotheses that (a) working-class students have fewer friends at university than middle-class students, and (b) this social class difference occurs because working-class students tend to be older than middle-class students. A sample of 376 first-year undergraduate students from an Australian university completed an online survey that contained measures of social class and age as well as quality and quantity of actual and desired friendship at university. Consistent with predictions, age differences significantly mediated social class differences in friendship. The Discussion focuses on potential policy implications for improving working-class students’ friendships at university in order to improve their transition and retention.


1966 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen Raskin ◽  
Risa Golob

An investigation was made of the occurrence of sex and social class differences in 15 premorbid competence, 14 symptom and two outcome measures. The sample comprised 138 newly admitted schizophrenics from nine hospitals. Middle-class patients evinced greater pre-adolescent psychic disturbance, greater premorbid interest and involvement in interpersonal, social and recreational activities, and were more emotionally unrestrained on admission than working-class patients. Female patients were older, more often married, higher on premorbid social achievement, and lower on symptoms characterizing grandiosity. The implications of these essentially negative findings for the process-reactive distinction in schizophrenia, and Zigler and Phillips' reported relationship between premorbid competence and symptoms, are discussed.


Author(s):  
Tytti P. Pasanen ◽  
Nina Tamminen ◽  
Tuija Martelin ◽  
Pia Solin

Living alone has become more common across Europe. Past research has consistently identified living alone as a risk factor for poor mental health while evidence on the positive dimension(s) of mental health has been scarce. Positive mental health has been associated with rather stable circumstantial factors, such as socio-economic characteristics and social relationships, and day-to-day activities in the form of leisure participation, in general populations. In this study, our objective was to assess these relationships among people living alone. We specified a structural equation model in a random sample of Finnish people living alone (n = 884), with the circumstantial factors as (exogenous) explanatory variables, participation in various leisure activities as mediators, and positive mental health as the outcome. In the model, more frequent engagement in several leisure-time activities, including being in contact with family/friends and physical activity in nature, were positively associated with positive mental health. The circumstantial factors that most strongly explained both leisure participation and positive mental health were the number of friends, being in a relationship, and having no limiting illnesses. In conclusion, among Finnish people living alone, social and functional factors appear to be more strongly associated with leisure participation and positive mental health than socio-economic factors.


1973 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 300-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Millicent E. Poole

Two cloze-tests were constructed from written essays encoded by 80 first-year university students of middle-class and working-class origin. In a second experimental situation, 46 tertiary subjects were asked to ‘fill in’ the missing cloze deletions of these written passages. Within the terms of the Bernstein elaborated-restricted code framework it was posited that, since working class language is thought to be characterized by greater lexical and structural predictability, these passages would facilitate the decoding task. The analysis was based firstly on a ‘verbatim’ cloze completion criterion and secondly utilized an information theory approach. Results on the first criterion indicated significant social class differences (higher predictability of working-class messages on lexical and total cloze deletions); whereas those on the second criterion were nonsignificant. Possible implications of the study for teaching were explored.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 327
Author(s):  
David Kaufman ◽  
Mi Ok Chang ◽  
Alice Ireland

<p><em>Older adults’ day-to-day leisure time activities both reflect and stimulate physical, cognitive, and social capacities that contribute to their quality of life. To better understand how leisure activity choices and possible impacts vary across two cultures, this questionnaire-based study compared leisure time use, perceived meaning of life, and psychological distress for 617 older adults in Canada (n=298) and the Republic of Korea (Korea) (n=319). Compared to Koreans, Canadian respondents spent more time overall in leisure activities and devoted a higher percentage of their total leisure time to active, rather than passive, activities. They spent significantly more of their time on cognitively active activities, while Koreans preferred socially and physically active ones and scored significantly higher on both meaning of life and psychological distress. Both groups spent more of their time watching television than on any other single reported activity. Age group, retirement status, health, education, and income varied across the two countries and were significantly associated with aspects of leisure time use for each group. The results identify areas for improvement if Canadian and Korean older adults’ leisure time use is to effectively support their aging well.</em></p>


2019 ◽  
pp. 74-90
Author(s):  
Eliza Cubitt

This chapter places the leisure pursuits of female characters in Harkness’s fiction in a broader context of gendered cultural anxieties about working-class leisure activities in the late nineteenth century. Focusing on two of Harkness’s novels, A City Girl and In Darkest London, it argues that, for working women in Harkness’s fiction, leisure may be difficult to access and often becomes another form of work. Comparing Harkness’s characters to women in other contemporary texts such as Liza of Lambeth, it shows how leisure pursuits often reflect and reproduce social dangers and structures of oppression for unmarried working-class women.


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