# Robert A. Stebbins

Robert Alan Stebbins (born June 22, 1938) is a Canadian sociologist. He is a professor emeritus at the University of Calgary and was associate editor for Leisure and Voluntaristics Review: Brill Research Perspectives.
Stebbins has published more than 300 research articles and is the author of 65 books and monographs. Most of his work is in leisure studies and has centered on amateurs, hobbyists, career volunteers, and the serious leisure perspective.
Stebbins is the former president of Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association and Social Science Federation of Canada. He is the recipient of the Outstanding Contribution Award from the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association and the Marguerite Dentinger Prize from the Association canadienne-française de l'Alberta. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1999.

## Education

Stebbins received his bachelor's degree from Macalester College in 1961 and then completed a master's degree and doctoral studies in sociology from the University of Minnesota in 1962 and 1964 respectively.

## Career

After receiving his Ph.D., Stebbins was appointed as associate professor of sociology at Presbyterian College, where he taught for one year before working at Memorial University of Newfoundland as an assistant professor from 1965 till 1968. For the next three years, Stebbins served as associate professor and head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and then taught as a professor from 1971 till 1973. He joined the University of Texas at Arlington as a professor of sociology for a three-year term. In 1976, Stebbins moved to Canada and joined the University of Calgary as head of the Department of Sociology till 1982 and then taught as a professor until 1999. In 2000, he was promoted to faculty professor and then to professor emeritus of sociology.
Stebbins served as president of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association from 1987 till 1990 and Social Science Federation of Canada from 1990 till 1993. From 1997 till 2002, Stebbins was board director of the World Leisure and Recreation Association. He became a senior fellow of the World Leisure Academy and vice-president of Research Committee 13 (Sociology of Leisure) at the International Sociological Association in 2010.

### Research

Stebbins has conducted extensive qualitative research on humor, work, and leisure. Most of his work in leisure studies has centered on the serious leisure perspective (SLP), which is a term he coined in 1982 and elaborated on in 2007. Stebbins' work has focused on developing a grounded theory of leisure of all types.
A common subfield of his research is amateur musicians. Stebbins authored an article in 1969 about jazz musicians and role distance behavior. In 1978, Stebbins researched the creation of high culture and the role of American amateur musicians, proposing a new method to analyze high culture.
Stebbins has authored more than 50 books and monographs. In 1971, he published Commitment to Deviance: The Nonprofessional Criminal in the Community which was recommended in Social Forces to “professions which deal with the problems of publicly labeled deviants.” Stebbins published Amateurs: On the Margin Between Work and Leisure in 1979; Marianne Gosztonyi Ainley writes for Isis that it “offers useful definitions for amateurs and professionals." In 1991, Lori V. Morris reviewed Stebbins' book The Laugh-Makers: Stand-Up Comedy as Art, Business, and Life-Style, writing: “Anyone with a fan's curiosity about comedians would likely find this book interesting.” In 1996, Stebbins published The Barbershop Singer: Inside the Social World of a Musical Hobby. Stan Parker of the University of Brighton called the book “short but highly readable."
In The Serious Leisure Perspective (2020), Stebbins provides a synthesis of the 47 years of work on the SLP. A website hosting information on the SLP was created in 2006 by Stebbins in collaboration with Jenna Hartel.

## Awards and honors

* 1996 – Elected Fellow, Academy of Leisure Sciences
* 1996 – Distinguished Research Award, University of Calgary
* 1997 – Outstanding Contribution Award, Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association
* 1999 – Elected Fellow, Royal Society of Canada
* 2003 – Marguerite Dentinger Prize, Association canadienne-française de l'Alberta
* 2010 – Elected Senior Fellow, World Leisure Academy
* 2019 – Honorary Lifetime Member, Leisure Studies Association
* 2022 – Best Book Prize (for The Serious Leisure Perspective), Leisure Studies Association