Despite its relatively small land mass (approximately 245 000 sq km), the UK is now home to close to 61 million people (Office of National Statistics, 2009). This high population density (243 per km2), aggregated in major cities, leaves the remaining land area, under great stress to produce food and housing and recreation opportunities for the country’s ever increasing population. The principle of ‘right of way’, allowing walkers to cross privately owned land on paths or tracks, totalling about 140,000 miles (225,000km) makes recreation in Britain unique. In the mosaic of the English countryside, linear features (such as field boundaries, woodland edges and streams) are often the natural route of public rights of way. The importance of field boundaries to wildlife within the agricultural landscape, has been recognised for several years. Disturbance by public access and recreation is another potential source of detriment to farmland wildlife, and one that is noticeably absent from current research. As managers consider how to limit impacts, they are faced with difficult decisions that affect countryside users, landowners and biodiversity. A call by authors for better integrated social and ecological research regarding recreation impacts has been heard in recent years. This study takes a holistic approach to this challenge utilizing a questionnaire survey of farmers/landowners, recreational groups and members of the public in the Midland counties of England to identify areas of conflict between recreational users and identify areas current management that could be improved. Disturbance to wildlife and damage to tracks from ‘trampling’ were two topics commonly identified as areas of concern to landowners, recreational groups and the general public. Study two attempts to account for the differences in diversity, abundance and spatial distribution of farmland birds along a disturbance gradient (footpath). No significant difference between bird abundance or species richness on transects following public rights of way and control transects was found in this study, suggesting that presence of public rights of way with ‘low’ recreational disturbance does not impact on the abundance of farmland birds in lowland England. Study three investigates an important consideration in management of recreation and access - the durability or vulnerability of a vegetation type to activity. Low resistance to four studied activities (All Terrain Vehicles, horse & rider, walker and mountain bike), was exhibited by MG7 grassland in this study; all four activity types showing a 50% cover loss at 40 passes or less. The low resistance of grassland to trampling could have implications for management since areas of disturbance become obvious with just a few passes – these areas will tend to attract more use, and therefore lead to trail formation. In the case of Rights of Way that follow an obvious route such as a field boundary are less likely to have issues with be a problem. ROW without an obvious route to follow (through pasture or grassland) or physical boundary (hedge or crop edge) to guide the trail user wandering from the intended trail and possible formation of secondary trails could occur. This potential problem argues for the use good signage to avoid trail users losing their way from the intended route. The results of the three studies were drawn together in the final chapter to formulate suggestions for management of public access and recreation in lowland farmland.

The Web 2.0 environment has altered North American society immeasurably as producers and consumers have merged into one, the prosumer. This new type of individual is visible in the blogosphere, in particular when examining travel blogs. The creators of travel blogs spend a considerable amount of their leisure and work creating and maintaining these travelogues, but little research has queried them about these efforts. The online contributions travel bloggers make potentially places their leisure choices within the Serious Leisure Perspective (SLP), more specifically within the sub-category of serious leisure. By engaging travel bloggers through a qualitative based questionnaire about their travel blogs, this research identified motivations and benefits of blogging. Recommendations for further research about online pursuits and serious leisure are suggested and the ways prosumers are linked to and have formed relationships with the mainstream travel industry are discussed. This research provides insight into travel bloggers’ perceptions of their contributions to the Web 2.0 environment, to the Serious Leisure Perspective, and to the travel industry.

Despite evidence to support physically active and passive leisure as significant contributors to well-being, for working mothers, fitting leisure into an already busy schedule can be challenging. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of perceived time constraints and self-determination for physically active and passive leisure on conflict between these two leisure domains and the influence of this conflict on well-being among physically active working mothers. A total of 66 women who were physically active, worked at least 30 hours per week outside the home and had at least one child living in the home, participated in the study. At baseline, the participants completed a basic intake assessment in addition to validated questionnaires to measure time constraints and motivation for physically active and passive leisure. A two-week period of electronic experience sampling followed to evaluate leisure engagement. A final set of measures to evaluate conflict between physically active and passive leisure over the two weeks, and general well-being were completed at the end of the experience sampling period. Results indicated that despite relatively high levels of satisfaction with time available for both physically active and passive leisure, perceived time constraints were associated with increased goal conflict as are non-self-determined motivation for physically active leisure and self-determined motivation for passive leisure. Controlling for engagement in physically active and passive leisure, well-being is negatively influenced by goal conflict. Recommendations are provided regarding areas for additional research to further our understanding of the impact of opposing motivational orientations on goal conflict including the incorporation of Vallerand’s Dualistic Model of Passion (Vallerand et al., 2003). From a practical standpoint, the implications of the study results for interventions designed to address general well-being in middle class working mothers through targeting factors related to time constraints and goal conflict are discussed.

There is a noticeable decline in physical activity participation during transitions, including moving between levels of education (Bray & Born, 2004; Gyursick, Bray & Brittain, 2004; Bray & Kwan, 2007). Despite its importance, little is known about the process of successful transitions and how it impacts physical activity behaviour for university students. A way to further understand the transition process is to explore the leisure constraints and the constraints negotiation process for these young adults. The purpose of this study was to examine physically active leisure for young adults, who were successful at continuing their participation in physical activity during their transition into university. Students were recruited from randomly selected 2nd and 3rd year general courses and invited to participate in a semi-structured, one on one interview with the researcher. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with second to fourth year university students at a mid-size western Canadian university. Their narratives explored students’ beliefs, constraints, and constraint negotiation strategies they used to stay physically active, in a variety of individual and team sport physical activities. The participants were categorized into four categories, based on their participation level, and an in-depth analysis of narratives was done for each participant category. These profiles are rated on a continuum that determined whether they were more or less active than before, and on the types of the activities they pursued. The comparison and the placement into the particular categories were determined by what type of activities they are doing at university. The students reported having both positive orientation and an identity that was associated with their active behaviour. Physical activity was noted as a higher priority in their lives. Their current student environment and student lifestyle was an enabler for physically active behaviours. Students described feeling constrained, in some aspects of their behaviour, but because physical activity was a higher priority, they were able to successfully negotiate those constraints. A key theme that emerged from these stories was enjoyment, but for two separate reasons; the social aspect and a challenge aspect. These aspects were found in the same activity or different activity, depending on the interests of the participant. However, it is important that the individual understand why they participate in physical activity and the outcome(s) they seek. This will help the student continue their physical activity behaviour during transitions, into post-secondary education and through other life course stages. / Graduate

Categories and frequencies of leisureactivities employed by 156 randomly selected males and females aged 40-44, 50-54, 60-64 were investigated by structured interviews and were related to leisuresatisfaction, to experienced health and socio-economic status. In equal numbers (15) of males and females from each group and in 24 males (60 +_6 years) with intermittent claudication (Cl) isokinetic plantar flexion performance was investigated with registrations of peak torque (PT), contractional work (CW), active range-of-motion (RoM) and integrated electromyograms from all threee triceps surae heads. Subjects performed a few maximum plantarflexions at different velocities of angular motion and also up to 200 consecutive plantar flexions at 60 °/s. The males aged 40-44 were re -investigated after two years additionally using electromyographic power frequency analyses. Leisure choice was mainly age and sex independent and extensively included outdoor activities. Leisure satisfaction was positively associated with relative frequency of activities. Symptoms of bodily discomfort, in particular backpain, were quite common and apparently caused relatively low level of mutual leisure activities. Thus, with in this age span, leisure activities appear rather rigid but often successfully, adhered to . Common ailments influence partnership mutuality negatively. Plantar flexion PT and CW are adequately p re dicta ble by sex, age and crural circumference. Uniformly a 3:2 male/female ratio characterizes mechanical output and iEMG. The latter is velocity independent. Output decreases with increasing age. Hence the output/excitation balance (CW/iEMG) is age, but not sex, dependent. CI-patients produce less PT and CW than do controls. Independently of this disease, of age and sex, PT and CW describe parallel negative exponential functions of velocity. During repeated manoeuvres plantar flexion output and iEMG initially drop, there after to maintain nearly steady-state levels. Throughout up to 200 contractions CW/iEMG was unaltered in the clinically healthy. Test/re-test with two years interval yielded nearly identical results. Leftshifts in mean power frequency in parallel with output-drop imply that the latter probably is due to FT-motor unit fatigue. For CW, but not for PT, the drop became slower and the (relative) steady-state level higher with increasing age, indicating significant increase in endurance with age. In the Cl-patients, output, but not excitation, decreased after a few repititions. Therefore, CW/iEMG fell dramatically, implying intramuscular fatigue. Taken together with findings of close associations between total cumulated work and measured/expected maximum walking tole rance it is suggested that measurements of CW and calculations of CW/iEMG are of clinical value. / <p>Härtill 5 uppsatser</p> / digitaliserinlg@umu.se

The argument in this thesis maintains that despite the official recognition of professional football players in England by the highest law-making body within the sport (the Football Association) in 1885, it can be seen with the benefit of a century of hindsight that this act of legislation was merely a step towards legal rights for footballers which are more generally recognised in other branches of industry. It is further argued that the history of the legal status of professional footballers cannot be adequately conceptualised by the frequently employed schema 'illegality - legality - freedom', representing a three stage teleological evolution of the professional player as outhw prior to 1885, then as legitimate and respectable between 1885 and 1963 and finally as free and bourgeois from 1963 onwards. The denial of such a fictitious history involves the detailed historical and sociological investigation of the various, often contradictory, legal and social statuses of the professional footballer since his initial constitution as a legal subject in the late nineteenth century. Such investigation involves the major theoretical question in the study of law, that is, what exactly it is that is involved in legal 'recognition': in other words in being, or not being, a legal subject or legal 'person'. It is hoped that this thesis sheds some light on this question from a general and specific viewpoint.

This qualitative study of Youth Training (YT) is centred specifically around the experiences of trainee professional footballers. Presenting a case-study analysis of one professional English Football League club, it utilizes those methods of sociological enquiry traditionally associated with ethnography (i.e. participant observation, unstructured interviews, and documentary analysis) in order to explore the day-to-day lives of the individuals concerned. The study depicts the way in which YT recruits are socialized into professional football club culture and how their career expectations and aspirations are subsequently shaped by the detailed complexities of institutional experience. In turn, it looks at how trainees learn to adapt to their chosen occupational position, and uncovers their attitudes towards such diverse topics as educational attendance, inter-personal relations and masculine construction. Set against the historical development of football apprenticeship within England, the work examines the impact of new vocational policy upon the football industry as a whole and portrays the role of the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) - and its subsidiary body The Footballers' Further Education and Vocational Training Society (FFE & VTS) - in relation to the implementation of YT provision. To this end, it attempts to determine the extent to which modern-day forms of football traineeship differ from those methods of indenture employed in previous years. At the same time, the study provides insight into the personal and social lives of the trainees in question. Notably issues of class, sexuality and gender are raised in terms of individual experience and interpretation. Furthermore, the influence of club officials is also considered in relation to the pressures, pitfalls and constraints of trainee development.

No description available.

This study analyses the dynamics and impact of international tourism in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It investigate how the Western Cape tourism sector interrelates with the international sector, and what developmental outcomes this has in the province. In terms of tourism's impact the study shows that it is geographically concentrated, with tourist activities focuses in and around the Cape metropolitan area and along the south eastern coastline. The province's rural areas have a very small share in the tourism market. Overall, tourism is following long-established patterns, being centred on the promotion of a number of traditional attractions and tourist images. The nature and distribution of tourism is partly related to the role and actions of key producers. Tour operators, for example, have an important effect on travel flows. They, along with other producers and agents such as the media, significantly influence consumers' knowledge and perceptions, and consequently the image(s) of the Western Cape. This in turn has an important consequence on localities and destinations that are visited by tourists. Furthermore, investment trends show that there is limited infrastructural development and demand-stimulation by the government or other tourism producers in regions where tourism impact is lowest. The provincial government is pursing an objective of sustained tourism growth, and greater tourism equity and impact distribution. This objective is hampered by several factors. The Western Cape tourism economy has significantly grown over the past seven years, but a number of aspects may constrain continued growth. Firstly, political, economic and social factors in the larger exogenous environment play an important role in restricting tourist demand. This, coupled with seasonal fluctuations in demand has led to a sector characterised by overcapacity. The regime governing flight access and availability to the Western Cape furthermore has a limiting effect on tourism production and consumption. In practice, the goals of growth and equity are difficult to balance. The government primarily seeks to do this by coupling the development of new products that involve the historically disadvantaged population of the province with an innovative product offer that appears to both traditional and new market segments. There is however a generally low level of demand for new or alternative products such as township tourism in international source markets.

No description available.