Redefining Family, Redefining Leisure: Progress Made and Challenges Ahead in Research on Leisure and Families

Valeria J. Freysinger, Guest Editor Miami University Department of Physical Education, Health, and Sport Studies Oxford, OH 45056 A little more than a decade ago, the Journal of Leisure Research (JLR) published a review of the literature on leisure and families that made a number of recommendations for future research in this area based on the extant research, the recommendations engendered by this research, and an assessment of relevant theory (Holman & Epperson, 1984). Those recommendations ranged from theoretical concerns to appropriate statistics or analytic techniques to identification of under- and un-explored, but important, variables. The recommendations made in this article more than a decade ago provide a useful point of comparison for the research that is presented in this Special Issue of JLR on Leisure and Families. Such a comparison indicates that much progress has been made, but also that challenges still remain. Further, some of the challenges with which we are faced today in doing research on leisure and families come from insights and concerns that have emerged since Holman and Epperson's review, once again highlighting the historical embeddedness of our scholarship. Because this special issue contains two insightful critical reviews of the research on leisure and families (see Kelly and Shaw, this issue), I want to make just a few comparisons between the 1984 review article and the research in this special issue by briefly discussing examples of the progress that has been made and the challenges that we continue to face. I trust that your reading of all the articles in this special issue will reveal many others to you. One of the suggestions proffered by Holman and Epperson in their 1984 review was the need to look at different family types or structures; in other words, that researchers needed to open their eyes to the multiple ways that families are enacted and constructed and hence, redefine their notions or concepts of family to be reflective of reality. The research presented in the following pages suggests that some of us have begun to do that. However, this research also reveals that for many of us heterosexual married couples with children at home-the "traditional" family-are still the focus. This despite the fact that a growing number of households in North America do not consist of a heterosexual married couple with children at home (Johnson, 1996). It is interesting, then, to think about why such families continue to be the focus of most of our research. Is it that such families are the ones to whom most of us have access? Or are these the families with which some of us are most comfortable? Or are these families the ones who are most able to take time to participate in our studies? Or is it because many of us think of marriage and children as being necessary for a family to exist? What of the leisure and families of older adults who soon will comprise the largest proportion of households in North America? Of course, the "traditional" family is one form of family and deserving of our attention. But when it is uncritically presented as "the" family, our research is problematic. So while progress has been made, in North America we still face the challenge of "de-centering" a notion of family which has never been traditional (Hareven, 1994). Another recommendation of the 1984 article addressed the a-theoretical nature of much of the research on leisure and families. The studies in this special issue reveal that progress has been made in this area as well. That is, where appropriate, theory is increasingly guiding research. At the same time, the research presented here suggests that we have become more sophisticated in our approaches to "knowledge production." Increasingly, our research questions are pursued using multiple paradigms-and it is likely that our understanding of leisure and families would be greatly enhanced by more of this. One issue not discussed in Holman and Epperson's (1984) review that many of us would consider evidence of progress made has to do with whose voices we listen to in our studies of leisure and families. …