Exploring efficacy in personal constraint negotiation: an ethnography of mountaineering tourists

Limited work has explored the relationship between efficacy and personal constraint negotiation for adventure tourists, yet efficacy is pivotal to successful activity participation as it influences people’s perceived ability to cope with constraints, and their decision to use negotiation strategies. This paper explores these themes with participants of a commercially organised mountaineering expedition. Phenomenology-based ethnography was adopted to appreciate the social and cultural mountaineering setting from an emic perspective. Ethnography is already being used to understand adventure participation, yet there is considerable scope to employ it further through researchers immersing themselves into the experience. The findings capture the interaction between the ethnographer and the group members, and provide an embodied account using their lived experiences. Findings reveal that personal mountaineering skills, personal fitness, altitude sickness and fatigue were the four key types of personal constraint. Self-efficacy, negotiation-efficacy and other factors, such as hardiness and motivation, influenced the effectiveness of negotiation strategies. Training, rest days, personal health, and positive self-talk were negotiation strategies. A conceptual model illustrates these results and demonstrates the interplay between efficacy and the personal constraint negotiation journey for led mountaineers

Continued Sport Participation and the Negotiation of Constraints

The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the social processes that support ongoing involvement in recreational sport and the negotiation of constraints that would otherwise limit participation. This purpose is explored through three studies. Study 1 examined the contributions of a social group to women’s continued participation in golf through ethnographic methods. Data were collected through an ethnography of a women’s social group that regularly played golf, and analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Findings suggested two overarching themes that explained persistence in golf for these women: connecting with group members, and constructing a group culture. Importantly, the processes that facilitated the development of group connections were also identified. Study 2 develops an understanding of constraints and negotiation processes in a self-organized middle age women’s recreation group. While research has found that people prefer to participate with others, work examining constraints to participation have primarily taken an individual perspective. Data were collected and analyzed the same way they were in Study 1. While some of these constraints influenced recreation involvements negatively, the findings predominantly describe six ways in which the group has collectively developed strategies that enabled them to negotiate most constraints. Study 3 extends recent work on the constraint negotiation process through the addition and refinement of key factors, within the context of intramural sports involving undergraduate university students. Results of the structural equation modeling analysis indicated that the perceived-constraint-effects model provided a good fit to the data, and supported the inclusion of ego involvement and motivation

'Working out’ identity: distance runners and the management of disrupted identity

This article contributes fresh perspectives to the empirical literature on the sociology of the body, and of leisure and identity, by analysing the impact of long-term injury on the identities of two amateur but serious middle/long-distance runners. Employing a symbolic interactionist framework,and utilising data derived from a collaborative autoethnographic project, it explores the role of ‘identity work’ in providing continuity of identity during the liminality of long-term injury and rehabilitation, which poses a fundamental challenge to athletic identity. Specifically, the analysis applies Snow and Anderson’s (1995) and Perinbanayagam’s (2000) theoretical conceptualisations in order to examine the various forms of identity work undertaken by the injured participants, along the dimensions of materialistic, associative and vocabularic identifications. Such identity work was found to be crucial in sustaining a credible sporting identity in the face of disruption to the running self, and in generating momentum towards the goal of restitution to full running fitness and reengagement with a cherished form of leisure. KEYWORDS: identity work, symbolic interactionism, distance running, disrupted identit

Beyond the Screen: How Women\u27s Use of Social Media is Changing the Ideological American Wilderness Landscape

American wilderness is a unique and socially constructed landscape. I argue that current wilderness perceptions are perpetuated by tourism, which profits off wilderness as ripe with risk and uncertainty. This in turn creates wilderness as a gendered, masculine space commonly perceived as “authentic wilderness”, but where women are often invisible or seen as ill-suited within. Through surveys and interviews with women active in wilderness recreation and on social media, it was found that women’s use of Facebook, Instagram, and Blogs, increases empowerment and promotes participation in activities through constraints negotiation and contributes to the deconstruction of conventional gender expectations. Women’s only Facebook groups, more specifically, offered safe spaces of support and community for active participants and also those who have not yet participated in wilderness spaces. Social media use actively increases women’s physical and visual presence in wilderness spaces, challenging the assumption that their place is outside of wilderness

LEISURE PARTICIPATION AND PERCEIVED CONSTRAINTS OF PARENTS AND CAREGIVERS OF CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES

The purpose of this study is to help gain a better understanding of the perceived leisure constraints of parents/caregivers of a child with disabilities and when given the opportunity for respite from parenting roles, how they use their leisure time. A total of 39 parents/caregivers completed the electronic questionnaire with the majority of respondents being female parents. Five main themes were identified in result of the common response patterns embedded throughout the parents/caregivers questionnaire responses, which were: (a) leisure activities, (b) time, (c) extra planning, adaptations, and modifications, (d) resources, and (e) attitude. Findings identified the perceived barriers to leisure of parents/caregivers of a child with disabilities and types of negotiation strategies used in order to participate in chosen leisure activities. During a time of respite, the majority of the parents/caregivers took advantage of more passive leisure activities such as relaxing, recharging their batteries, reflecting, and reconnecting with significant other and friends. This study supports the need for more respite opportunities for parents/caregivers and families of a child with disabilities as well as provides practical implications to expand the field of therapeutic recreation

Helping Families Play: Developing a Framework for Family Recreation Programming

Family recreation is an important part of life for many families, but many people may not be participating in as much family recreation as they would like, or some people may not be enjoying the family recreation activities in which they participate. The purpose of this study was to develop a framework for providing family recreation activities that can help all family members have enjoyable experiences. Ecological theory and leisure constraints theory were used to frame the study. The family accessibility conceptual framework was developed, tested, and modified for providing family recreation activities. A collective case study was conducted using multiple sources of data to develop the family recreation framework. Printed material (i.e. flyers, brochures, information online) and photographs taken at each organization were analyzed, and interviews were conducted with both recreation providers who facilitate family experiences and parents of families who participate in these experiences. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Findings can be used to help providers in a variety of settings facilitate more enjoyable recreation experiences for families

Recreational Fishing Participation in Utah: Comparing Active and Non-Active Angler Constraint Perceptions With the Use of License Purchase Data

As a leisure activity, recreational fishing provides numerous social, physical, and psychological benefits to its participants. It can also provide socioeconomic opportunities to specific communities, and as an outdoor activity can create support for natural fisheries resources and public lands. License and equipment taxes are also important funding mechanisms for state wildlife managers. Though fishing participation as a percentage of the population has overall decreased in the last century, there is a recent increase in fishing participation. However, participation dynamics result in a shifting cycle of entries, departures, and re-entries to the sport. In an effort to maintain participation and address volatility, national and state fishing organizations and management agencies have developed initiatives that target individuals through a mix of marketing and other programs to either recruit new anglers, retain current anglers, or re-activate currently lapsed anglers. These are commonly referred to as R3 initiatives. Recreation and leisure activity research has previously connected an individual\u27s lapse in participation to the experience of constraints. Specific constraints relate to a variety of factors or scenarios that are categorized into an established dimension hierarchy that includes structural, interpersonal, and intrapersonal constraints. Constraints do not always result in participation lapse and self-employed negotiation strategies are often found in individuals who continue to fish despite experiencing constraints. This study applies the established theory of hierarchal leisure constraints and negotiations to a typology that reflects recruited, retained, re-activated and lapsed anglers. This typology was developed using R3 initiative literature and applied by selecting respective participants through patterns in their Utah fishing license purchase history. Results indicate consistent demographic trends established in the literature, with lapsed anglers being more likely to be older than active anglers, and recruited anglers being more demographically diverse and younger on average than other angler groups. Recruited and lapsed respondents were primarily nonresidents, while retained and re-activated anglers were primarily Utah residents. Lapsed and recruited respondents were also more likely to purchase short-term licenses. Family involvement with fishing in Utah was reported frequently, which has previously been identified as a factor influencing participation. The strongest constraints experienced by respondents overall were constraints related to time and fishing quality. Lapsed, retained and re-activated anglers were more likely to report experiencing constraints than recruited anglers. Lapsed anglers were the least likely to use negotiation tactics

‘It’s like equality now; it’s not as if it’s the old days’: an investigation into gender identity development and football participation of adolescent girls

This article explores the influence participating in football has on the development of adolescent girls’ gender identity, an area which currently lacks academic attention. Data were taken from an ethnographic study with a group of adolescent girls and boys and compared to Jeanes’ research. A social constructionist framework was deployed with links to both critical theory and feminist literature. Qualitative and participatory methods were used to fully engage with the complex issue of gender identity. The girls within this study were aware of the normative gender expectations linked to ‘being a female’ but did not find this restrictive. The girls moved between many changing identities and organised their ‘web of selves’ accordingly. The apparent need to measure success by the parameters of male standards created a barrier to girls’ identity development

Learning from leisure: Developing nature connectedness in outdoor education

The “greening” of outdoor education has received increasing attention from educators in Aotearoa-New Zealand and internationally. Given contemporary global concerns about the scale of environmental issues and the associated recognition that educating for sustainability is a matter of urgency, the continuing exploration of pedagogies promoting human connection to nature is arguably a central concern for outdoor educators. This paper contributes to professional dialogue about outdoor education pedagogies that may facilitate the development of students’ connectedness to, and care for, non-human nature. It draws from an interpretative research project that explored the meanings of nature-based leisure for eleven women aged 40 to 65 years. Findings from that research highlighted an important interplay between women’s conceptions of nature and their participation in leisure. The paper directs attention to three interconnected pedagogical principles that are teased from the women’s stories: repeated immersion in local nature environments, the decentring of traditional performance discourses, and critical reflection. These are presented as key considerations for outdoor education teachers and teacher educators in promoting nature connectedness and care. Recommendations are made for outdoor education researchers and teacher educators for future research directions

Surveying the Landscape of Theories and Frameworks Used in the Study of Sport and Religion: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Religion and sport is a bourgeoning and maturing interdisciplinary area of study. As the volume of research conducted about topics related to the interface of religion and sport, attention to sound research methods, including the use of relevant theories and theoretical/conceptual frameworks becomes essential. Scholars such as Stausberg and Engler (2014) have posited that the methods used in religious studies (including theory and frameworks) are not as rigorous as those utilized in social science related fields. The imperative then becomes to use theories and frameworks from social science related disciplines such as leisure studies, sports studies and sport psychology to strengthen scholarship in this emerging area. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of pertinent theories and theoretical/conceptual frameworks that are commonly used in the study of sport and religion. An interdisciplinary approach is taken to highlighting and expounding on a select group of theories and theoretical/conceptual frameworks