Leisure patterns of African American families

African American families have an important history that has been impacted by a myriad of factors such as slavery, unequal treatment, and segregation. Despite these challenges, African American families have maintained by utilizing adaptive strategies such as establishing extended kin networks and navigating aspects such as environmental inequities and access to quality recreational resources. In general, family leisure has been linked to several benefits such as improved communication, cohesion, and satisfaction with family life. Further, there is a wealth of literature on African Americans’ leisure that has noted discrimination in leisure spaces, racial prejudice, lack of quality recreation resources, and racial violence. Thus, although there has been substantial research on African America families and families in general, and African Americans’ leisure, there is a paucity of literature that focuses specifically on African American families’ leisure. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine leisure within African American families. To achieve this purpose, there are two research objectives regarding African American families: 1) To examine leisure experiences, patterns, and processes of African American families and 2) to investigate factors impacting African American family leisure. The study was guided by constructivist grounded theory and 13 semi-structured interviews of African American participants. With the aid of Thematic Analysis, five prominent themes emerged: 1) family concepts, 2) activity patterns, 3) factors that influence family choice, 4) leisure motives, and 5) complexity of race. After identifying the themes, I was able to connect the findings to existing literature, state theoretical and practical implications, and describe pathways for future research.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Recreation, Sport, and Tourism

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2024

Author dc:creator

• Watson, Darrien

Contributors dc:contributor

• Shinew, Kimberly
• Stodolska, Monika
• Smith, Sharde
• Olster, Terry

• African American
• Family, Leisure

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2024 Darrien Watson

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/127471

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F127471