Social Worlds and the Leisure Experience

Robert A. Stebbins is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology at the University of Calgary, Canada. He has written over 250 articles and chapters and written or edited more than 50 books, including Serious Leisure, Between Work and Leisure, Leisure’s Legacy: Challenging the Common-Sense View of Free Time and The Idea of Leisure. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

• List of Tables and FiguresPreface1. Conceptual Framework2. Members and Their Activities3. Culture and Communications4. ConclusionsReferencesIndex

The author examines the social organization of the modern leisure experience of amateurs, hobbyists, and career volunteers, showing how activities are organized on a routine basis to facilitate their pursuit, and what happens to impact them. He discusses the concept of social world, the serious leisure perspective, and the qualities of serious pursuit; members of leisure social worlds and the activities they pursue, such as cogitative, artistic, and collecting pursuits and volunteering; their culture and communications; and the issue of the differences separating the casual and serious leisure social worlds.