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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/86029
Description
Title
Subjective Definitions of Leisure by Older Women
Author(s)
Mathieu, Mary Anastasia
Issue Date
1998
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Lynn Barnett-Morris
Department of Study
Recreation, Sport and Tourism
Discipline
Recreation, Sport and Tourism
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Gerontology
Language
eng
Abstract
For the purposes of this study, SES is measured using Hollingshead's Two-Factor Index of Social Position. Advanced age, race, depressive symptoms, poor functional health, cognitive impairment, and living alone were assumed to have a potentially confounding influence upon subjective descriptions of enjoyment and were therefore controlled. Eighty, non-minority women from the ages of sixty through seventy-four from four socioeconomic groups (upper, upper-middle, middle, and lower-middle) were recruited using the snowball sampling technique. Informants were asked to first describe their most enjoyable involvement, then to rate the relevance of leisure and ten experiential variables as descriptors of their chosen involvement. Each informant was also asked to rate ten experiential variables and the concept of leisure on twelve semantic differentials representing the evaluation, activity, and potency dimensions of semantic space. This study found indications of predominant social agreement on the relevance and meaning of the term leisure and its associated experiential variables with subtle differences in connotative meaning associated with socioeconomic status. An implication of this study is the need to further explore social context as an important agent in the production of leisure definitions.
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