ABSTRACT

The Serious Leisure Perspective (SLP) divides leisure activity into three forms: serious, casual and project-based, each with a number of distinguishing qualities, rewards, costs and benefits. It is presented by its creator, Robert Stebbins, as both a classification system and a theoretical framework. In its early history, it was seen as a micro-level, or at most meso-level, construct concerned with the behaviour of individuals and small groups. More recently claims have been made that its theoretical reach extends to the macro-level, encompassing broad societal issues. This paper evaluates these claims in three parts: first, examining existing macro-level critiques of the SLP in the research literature; second, assessing claims of macro-level relatedness in SLP publications; and third, considering the extent to which generic macro-level social and leisure theory has been, or could be, related to the SLP. Under-explored or neglected opportunities for macro-level theoretical analysis are identified but, when examined, they invariably expose the theoretical weakness of the SLP, particularly regarding any distinctive role for serious as opposed to casual leisure. This leads to the conclusion that the claim that the SLP offers a viable macro-level theoretical framework for the study of leisure is questionable.

摘要

严肃休闲视角 (SLP) 将休闲活动分为三种形式：严肃的、休闲的和基于项目的，每种形式都有许多不同的品质、奖励、成本和收益。它由其创建者罗伯特·斯特宾斯 (Robert Stebbins) 提出，既是分类系统又是理论框架。在它的早期历史中，它被视为一个微观层面，或者至多是中观层面，与个人和小团体的行为有关的结构。最近有人声称其理论范围扩展到宏观层面，包括广泛的社会问题。本文从三个部分评估这些主张：首先，检查研究文献中现有的对 SLP 的宏观批评；第二，评估 SLP 出版物中宏观相关性的声明；第三，考虑一般宏观层面的社会和休闲理论已经或可能与 SLP 相关的程度。宏观层面的理论分析未被充分探索或被忽视的机会被识别出来，但在审查时，它们总是暴露出 SLP 的理论弱点，特别是关于严肃而非休闲休闲的任何独特作用。由此得出的结论是，关于 SLP 为休闲研究提供可行的宏观理论框架的说法是有问题的。