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Leaving an academic post by retiring (from teaching, research, academic administration) is to leave in later life a main, wider-community social involvement. Retirement from this occupational heaven can lead to an incongruous lifestyle, however, to a lonely, unsettling existence, even with compatible spouse, family, and close friends near at hand. For they cannot usually offer the values of academia. They fail to generate the feeling of being part of the larger community, of being somebody within it. There are three ways to recover this loss, each realized in leisure time, namely, serious leisure, casual leisure, and project-based leisure. Informal community social involvement refers to informal involvements of a fortnightly or monthly nature. Irregular community social involvement consists of local formal involvements that are pursued from time to time. Regular community social involvement refers to membership and steady member participation in local and extra-local formal organizations. For academic retirees in search of community involvement, becoming immersed in the social world of a serious leisure activity is possibly the most effective way to establish beyond the circle of one's intimates just who one is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examinations of the self and leisure are uncommon, not to mention those bearing on leisure and the semiotic self. The goal of this article is to help correct this deficiency. To this end, the serious leisure perspective is presented, followed by a discussion of how it is related to the semiotic self as formulated by Norbert Wiley. The principal vehicle by which this is accomplished is by way of the meaning of leisure. Moreover participants in serious leisure find there a powerfully attractive leisure career, an experience that is unavailable in the other two forms: casual and project-based leisure. This career frames the development of the semiotic self through leisure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Other sciences among them history, archaeology mineralogy, ornithology astronomy and entomology, have profited greatly from their vigorous amateur wings, which have existed along side of and sometimes preexisted the now dominant profession. The greatest single contribution of amateur science societies to their associated professions is the collection and dissemination of descriptive data. Intensive research on two of these amateur sciences and examination of the descriptive-historical literature of all six suggest that we ought to think seriously about promoting an amateur sociology. After a description of avocational science in general, a proposal for an amateur sociology is presented using the avocational developments in the other sciences as a model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents Robert A. Stebbins' reaction to several comments on his paper which appeared in a previous issue of The American Sociologist, which provided an account of professional and amateur sociology in the U.S. Stebbins states that he wishes only to offer a single clarification of a poorly communicated passage that caught Althauser's attention. It concerns the four conditions that encourage the emergence and persistence of an avocational interest in science. According to Stebbins, when he wrote the passage, he had Kuhn's concept of normal science in mind. Amateurism takes root in those sciences or areas of sciences that lack a dominant paradigm as the exclusive grade to scholarly research. These fields are in a preparadigm stage of development in which several schools of thought compete. Why then, is there no amateur sociology? Among the answers to this question, according to Stebbins, are that sociologists lack a tradition of amateurism, a vision that amateurs could help professionals with some of their research interests, and a willingness to organize nonprofessional assistance on any basis other than temporary. The same conclusions could likely be reached for other sciences.