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Education gained through leisure activities plays a central role in our search for self-fulfillment, be the leisure activity a project or a serious pursuit. After discussing the serious leisure perspective, education, both formal and informal, is explored for its special contribution to fostering fulfillment, defined as the realization of personal tastes, talents, and potential. Several key concepts marking the road to fulfillment are discussed: life course, process, leisure education, adult education, self-directed learning, and experience. The ways that acquired education as background knowledge is applied constitute a crucial step in finding self-fulfillment in an activity. The role of Internet and digital technology is also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the choice and pursuit of adolescents' most important and interesting leisure activity. It is underpinned by the concept of serious leisure, recent perceptions of seriousness as a continuum and calls for incorporating contextual elements of serious activity pursuit. A questionnaire survey was administered to 832 students from 10 secondary schools in Hong Kong. Students were asked to nominate leisure activity that they regarded as most important and interesting as well as to complete an adapted version of the Serious Leisure Inventory and Measure (SLIM). Results showed the popularity of sports and performance and graphic arts activities and of psychological reasons for activity choice. There were variations in activity choice between boys and girls and across schools as well as across levels of seriousness in activity pursuit. The study adds to the scant knowledge of adolescents' serious leisure and enhances understanding of motives for and meanings of serious engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]