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Although outdoor recreation significantly contributes to subjective well-being (SWB), existing studies suggest that African Americans are far less likely to participate in outdoor recreation compared to other racial and ethnic groups in the United States. This study examined African Americans' leisure involvement in outdoor recreation and its impact on leisure satisfaction and the affective components of SWB. The results showed that the Attraction and Identity Expression dimensions of leisure involvement not only positively affected leisure satisfaction but also indirectly contributed to SWB through leisure satisfaction. Moreover, Identity Affirmation had a significant direct effect on SWB. However, Centrality and Social Bonding had no significant association with leisure satisfaction and SWB. These findings revealed that pleasure and enjoyment derived from outdoor recreation, as well as opportunities to express one's identity to the self and others, were particularly important for African American outdoor recreationists' leisure satisfaction and SWB. Overall, the study findings are consistent with existing well-being and leisure literature., Author(s): KangJae Jerry Lee [sup.1] , Jonathan Casper [sup.1] , Roslynn Powell [sup.1] , Myron F. Floyd [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) https://ror.org/04tj63d06, grid.40803.3f, 0000 0001 2173 6074, Department of Parks, [...]

Research shows that collegiate recreation contributes to a greater sense of campus belonging for undergraduate students. Few studies, however, have examined the recreational interests of Black undergraduate students attending four-year colleges and universities. As part of a study comparing recreational preferences of Black and White students attending historically White institutions, 150 Black and 154 White undergraduate students were surveyed related to their interest in 27 recreational activities. Significant differences existed in several categories, but overall interest in outdoor recreation among Black undergraduate students was higher than expected, compared to prior literature. Moreover, findings were notable in several sport activities when comparing gender differences. Results support the notion that social, psychological, and institutional barriers exist that limit recreational involvement for certain groups. Findings may be useful for collegiate recreation professionals looking to promote sport and outdoor opportunities for undergraduate students of color on college campuses in the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses barriers to environmental education. Middle school students completed a science-activity-preference scale and a disgust-sensitivity scale. Respondents who expressed the lowest interest in activities that required manipulation of organic substances also had the highest disgust-sensitivity scores. (Author/CCM)

Background: The Physical Activity Research Center developed a research agenda that addresses youth physical activity (PA) and healthy weight, and aligns with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Culture of Health. This paper summarizes prioritized research studies with a focus on youth at higher risk for inactive lifestyles and childhood obesity in urban and rural communities. Methods: Systematic literature reviews, a survey, and discussions with practitioners and researchers provided guidance on research questions to build evidence and inform effective strategies to promote healthy weight and PA in youth across race, cultural, and economic groups. Results: The research team developed a matrix of potential research questions, identified priority questions, and designed targeted studies to address some of the priority questions and inform advocacy efforts. The studies selected examine strategies advocating for activity-friendly communities, Play Streets, park use, and PA of youth in the summer. A broader set of research priorities for youth PA is proposed. Conclusion: Establishing the Physical Activity Research Center research agenda identified important initial and future research studies to promote and ensure healthy weight and healthy levels of PA for at-risk youth. Results will be disseminated with the goal of promoting equitable access to PA for youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much of modern tourism research centers on the tourist as a leisure consumer, workers are frequently overlooked. Despite a recent uptick in attention to tourism work, the primary focus remains on employee's skills and qualifications. In contrast, the key contextual factors of race, ethnicity, and gender that surround tourism work are seldom examined. This comparative study addresses the theme of traditional gender roles, particularly in patriarchal societies, and how they affect tourism work. Specifically, it investigates how the presence of tourism influences cultural norms determining appropriate jobs for men and women. Utilizing an ethnographic field research approach, data were collected from participants in two indigenous Maya communities in Guatemala, each with differing models and lengths of tourism development. Free-listing exercises were used to elicit residents' perceptions of employment as it relates to gender in their community and cultural consensus analysis was used to analyze the data. Results show that neither community shares consensus on jobs for women and only one community shares consensus on men's jobs. Results suggest that tourism disrupts cultural norms related to gender roles; yet this may not always benefit women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public lands and the outdoor opportunities they afford are imbued with a long history of cultural and political contestations between the White settler colonial regime and Black and Native peoples in North America. These contestations are grounded in starkly different values and belief systems pertaining to the landscape and human-nature relations. Despite these contestations, whiteness continues to dominate the narratives about public lands and their institutions. Furthermore, the ideology of wilderness--as a place of refuge, the antidote to urban living-- remains the main frame of reference researchers use to explore outdoor experiences. Thus, as scholars continue to espouse this White settler colonial ideology of wilderness, they effectively suppress the experiences and values that racialized peoples hold towards nature and are historically shaped by their social and political realities. The history of slavery, post-slavery, and Black dispossession, have conjured up innovative Black diasporic cultural practices of resistance, survival and self-determination. Through hidden outdoor spaces they have forged a culture of resistance, built social structures centered on African traditional practices, and engaged in alternative modes of environmental stewardship. The Black outdoors culture today has roots in this robust legacy of resistance and political struggle for self-determination and should provide inspiration for outdoor recreation and environmental education programs that are culturally and politically relevant to Black people. In this paper we engage in an historic and contemporary investigation on Black people's political outlook of the outdoors and their political cultural engagement with those spaces. In doing so, we first call attention to the need to critically examine diversity discourses and practices by public land and outdoor recreation agencies designed to accommodate a multi-cultural society and how they contribute to a cultural hegemony that uphold white supremacy. We also review the history of research on outdoor experiences putting into sharp relief the Euro-centric values that dominate the analysis and maintain the cultural power of White racial identities. Finally, pulling from Black literary works, we propose Black-centered interpretations of nature rooted in their cultural worldviews and political resistance against hegemonic models of dispossession, abstraction and commodification. The aim here is to advocate for the co-existence of multiple cultural imaginaries of nature defined by the social and political realities of different racialized peoples, thus responding to the call for different paradigms of outdoor recreation highlighted in this special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two studies with adolescent youth (N = 1,376, N = 450) help clarify the relationship between childhood play experiences in wild environments and later environmental preferences in the life domains of work, leisure, and school. Respondents reporting having played in wild environments had more positive perceptions of natural environments, outdoor recreation activities, and future indoor/outdoor occupational environments. No significant differences were found for preferences for environmental sciences activities conducted in schools. Results suggest that childhood play in wildland environments is related to environmental competencies and preferences but not necessarily an intellectual interest in environmental sciences or environmentalism.