No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1992.

The purpose of this study was to answer the question: how do children influence attraction choice while on vacation? A cross-sectional, self-administered, web-based survey of 99 adult facilitators visiting one of three tourist attractions in Winnipeg, Canada with at least one child between the ages of six and 17 was used to: 1) gain insight on how groups with a child/children prefer to travel; 2) understand the reasons why groups with a child/children choose to visit a select type of attraction; 3) examine the views of adult facilitators who travel with a child/children on the child/children’s participation with regards to the selection of tourist attractions; and 4) investigate which attraction characteristics adult facilitators believe provide their entire group with the most satisfying experience. Results indicate that children have relatively little direct influence within the family or group unit on attraction choice.

The purpose of this study was to answer the question: how do children influence attraction choice while on vacation? A cross-sectional, self-administered, web-based survey of 99 adult facilitators visiting one of three tourist attractions in Winnipeg, Canada with at least one child between the ages of six and 17 was used to: 1) gain insight on how groups with a child/children prefer to travel; 2) understand the reasons why groups with a child/children choose to visit a select type of attraction; 3) examine the views of adult facilitators who travel with a child/children on the child/children’s participation with regards to the selection of tourist attractions; and 4) investigate which attraction characteristics adult facilitators believe provide their entire group with the most satisfying experience. Results indicate that children have relatively little direct influence within the family or group unit on attraction choice.

Rugby union was one of a number of versions of football to emerge from the mob games of pre-industrial England. It was adapted in the 19th Century into a pastime taken up by Gentlemen. During this period amateurism was the dominant hegemony, however conflict within the Rugby Football Union (RFU) over the concept of professionalism led to a schism with the working class clubs in the north of England forming their own professional version of the sport in 1895. Over the next one hundred years, the RFU utilised its power and authority to maintain amateurism as the central concept of rugby union. For much of this period amateurism was regarded as the superior approach to sports participation. It was, however, a definition of amateurism that was based on a 19th Century ideal. Changes took place in society, which changed the way sport was played. Sport became more serious and society began to demand only success from their teams. Rugby union was also influenced by the different cultures of the dominant playing powers of the Southern Hemisphere. As the 20`x' Century progressed, an emergent hegemony developed within sport, which emphasised qualities of performance that may be termed `professional'. In the last quarter of the 20th Century amateurism was a residual hegemony within sport and most major sports had become both commercially oriented and professional. In its desire to maintain and promote rugby, the RFU had become dependent on commercialism and had also permitted cups and leagues to become part of the sport. Finally, rather than lose total control of the sport the IRB agreed to allow professionalism. The five years since 1995 have seen a continued struggle for the control of the sport in England and have led some to fear for its survival at lower levels.

Sport has been the subject of an increasing amount of academic work in recent years but few texts cover women in any great depth. The history of their participation in the twentieth century, the obstacles they faced, and the support they received, needs to be studied in detail. This thesis addresses these questions, and contributes to the small but growing body of literature that places sporting women at the centre of research. It is a unique piece of work, which is solely concerned with the social history of women's athletics in England, from the establishment of the sport in 1921 until 1960. It is a common perception that few women were active in physical sports in the early twentieth century. However, this research 'has shown that that is an incorrect view. While there were not so many women involved as men, women's athletics was a thriving sport and one that was quickly established. It will be also be argued that there was greater male support than has previously been accepted. Nevertheless, opposition remained a powerful influence, and evidence of this will be presented throughout this thesis. The research has centred on the minutes of the Women's Amateur Athletic Association. Area association records were studied, as were some from individual athletic clubs and various committees that the WAAA was represented on. These are all resources that have not been previously analysed in detail, or indeed in some cases at all. Oral interviews provided information about club life, competition, and why certain individuals became involved in the sport. The resources have enabled an in-depth study of both the domestic side of the sport and English women's participation at international level.

No description available.

This study examines psychological determinants of the suppressed demand for recreational tourism. Its broad aim is to develop existing theoretical perspectives in order to throw light upon free choice non-holidaymaking. Part one uses structured interviews, and a supporting attitude survey, to contrast the perceptions and environmental circumstances of more and less vociferous participants. Specifically the interviewees' disclose perceived non-holidaymaking determinants and opportunity costs. Part two utilises questionnaires with personality items and non-parametric hypothesis testing, critically evaluating Nickerson and Ellis' (1991) postulated yet unsubstantiated predisposition to non-participation (introversion, low arousal seeking tendency and external locus of control). A cognitive mapping procedure then reveals evaluative criteria relevant to the holiday/no holiday decision. The explorative analysis demonstrates that suppressed demand has a non-permanent composition. Also the perceived opportunity costs of holidaymaking are invariably connected with homemaking expenditures (eg decorating and DIY). People moreover differentially prioritise holidaymaking 'per se'. Regarding the personality affects on non-participation, the analysis finds no evidence to support Nickerson and Ellis' assertions about introversion and low arousal seeking. On the other hand, an external locus of control does to dispose to non-holidaymaking (p=<p.05). The cognitive mapping experiment illustrates that homemaking expenditures are generally prioritised over and above holidaymaking. Although, more adventurous travellers perceive that these expenditures are of relatively more equal importance. These findings are combined in a synthesis of an emotive generic holiday decision model; emphasising transient effects, a generic resource allocation bias, and the normative-affective influences of omnipresent constraints. It is proferred that this model provides a previously lacking foothold that will support further advancements in holiday decision making research.

The rise of unemployment in industrialised countries since the mid-1970s, and its likely persistence into the foreseeable future, have stimulated general debate about the future roles of work and leisure. Several writers have claimed that in future leisure may, in part at least, form a 'solution' to the problems of societies in which there is a shortage of paid work. There is, however, substantial evidence that in a contemporary Britain leisure is of limited use as an immediate solution to the problems of unemployed people: when they become unemployed their leisure is more likely to reduce than increase in scale and quality and very few are able to develop a lifestyle in which leisure fulfils the role previously occupied by work. Despite this, since the early 1980s there has been a growth in public sector schemes providing special opportunities for unemployed people to take part in sport and recreation and the view persists that leisure has a special role in the lifestyles of unemployed people. This thesis assesses the response to a local authority scheme for the unemployed, established as an experiment by Leicester City Council in partnership with the Sports Council. The research examines the scale and pattern of attendance at the scheme and identifies wide variations in the participation patterns of users, few of whom became regular participants. The lifestyles of a sub-group of 'committed' frequent users were examined in more detail to identify the distinctive characteristics of those for whom the scheme had apparently become a regular feature in their lives. All of the sub-group of committed users had developed a generally 'active' lifestyle, untypical of that usually associated with the unemployed. Participation in the sports scheme was only one aspect of this. Most were also involved in more purposeful activities such as educational courses and voluntary work, these activities being more important to them and more of a 'work substitute'. The findings indicate that only a minority of unemployed people are likely to participate frequently in active forms of recreation and that those who do are also likely to be active in other ways. For those who do take part in recreation activities, such activities fulfil the 'normal' role of leisure: they do not provide a substitute for work or become an adequate basis for an alternative lifestyle in which the centrality of work is replaced by the centrality of leisure.

This thesis challenges the conventional assumptions that leisure and travel are associated with experience of freedom and escape. It argues that leisure behaviour has been shaped by programmes of moral regulation. The thesis argues that these programmes are deeply rooted. For comparative purposes, moral regulation in the middle ages and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are discussed. However, the main historical focus is on moral regulation in bourgeois society. It is argued that bourgeois culture sought to divide modern society into segments of experience: Private life was divided from public life, work from leisure, the female role from the male role, the bourgeois class from the working class, and so forth. The underlying aim behind these divisions was self realization. Through the `rational' bourgeois ordering of things it was hoped that the individual would maximize his or her capacities. Leisure and travel were part of the programme of self making. So far from being `free activities' they were self conscious activities geared to the aim of self realization. This thesis argues that there was a contradiction between the ambition of bourgeois culture which was to create a permanent rational order of things, and the action of modernity, which operated to neutralize or overturn bourgeois divisions. This contradiction is explored in the second chapter where the leisure of bourgeois women is discussed. The chapter attacks the feminist orthodoxy in the sociology of leisure which maintains that women's influence in leisure and travel is negligible. It examines the experience of bourgeois women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It submits that modernity operated not merely to subordinate women but also to activate them. Examples of the influence of women in shaping the aesthetics of metropolitan culture are discussed to illustrate the point. The thesis maintains that modernity is still the essential context for understanding leisure and travel experience. Chapter three attempts to compare modernity and postmodernity. In chapters four and five examples of leisure and travel forms in the last twenty five years are discussed in order to test the fashionable postmodern proposition that we have now moved into a condition of postmodernity. The thesis closes with an attempt to drawn the main themes of the thesis together. It reassesses the contradiction between the ambition of bourgeois society and the action of modernity. It concludes that the debate on modernity and postmodernity does not suggest the emergence of a new social condition. Rather its main effect has been to help us to understand the action of modernity more clearly.