How Specialized Is Specialization Research

David Scott and Scott Shafer's paper "Recreational Specialization: A Critical Look at the Construct" offers a timely and thoughtful synthesis of a concept that has received nearly 25 years of research attention in the leisure literature. Their review of the specialization literature reflects the maturing of a research emphasis that is moving beyond some of the implicit and explicit definitional disputes over measurement constructs experienced in any emerging research field. Their paper also asks research to move beyond the descriptive segmentation of participants within a recreational activity, and to think about processes of change in leisure participation. Their focus on change effectively reminds researchers of Bryan's (1977) original formulation of specialization as a developmental process; a model of change over time in the way people participate in leisure activities. It is easy to recognize change in our own, and others' style of participation in a leisure activity. With repeated leisure engagements, we become more capable participants, we begin to think differently about the activity and how it fits in our everyday routines, and we tend to develop an attachment to the activity and the social meanings connected to participation. The specialization construct provides an intuitively appealing model of leisure socialization to describe these developmental processes. After reviewing the specialization literature and featuring their model of progression, however, the authors conclude that "[a] lthough some people certainly progress (and some to an elite status), most probably either maintain involvement at a relatively fixed level or actually decrease their participation over time." They also argue that many leisure participants may have little or no desire to become leisure specialists. I generally agree with their conclusion, and have argued before that the specialization process may not be a linear progression (Kuentzel & McDonald, 1992). Other evidence cited by Scott and Shafer also questions the "general to particular" assumption of the specialization process. Their response to this dilemma is a call to "understand the antecedents or mechanisms underlying progress"-a sort of "leisure constraints" approach to explaining variation in the progression of participants in a leisure activity. The "mechanisms of progression" they outline are important and viable research questions for leisure researchers. Yet, in theorizing why many participants do not become specialists, they steadfastly maintain their commitment to the specialization framework. I would argue, however, that their conclusion raises difficult questions for the specialization concept, and that some of its assumptions deserve further critical scrutiny. The reason many people do not become specialists may lie in the way specialization is conceptualized. Scott and Shafer's review suggests to me three questions about the specialization concept: 1) Is the concept theoretically too broad and too analytically accommodating?, 2) Is the concept of progress valid in contemporary society?, and 3) does the specialization concept characterize a new "leisure elite" that describes a minority rather than a majority of leisure participants? Is the Specialization Concept too Broad? In trying to understand the contingencies of progress, specialization research must accommodate an expanding diversity of disciplinary questions. Scott & Shafer's review makes reference to behavioral psychology, cognitive psychology, existential philosophy, geography, gender analysis, class analysis, ethnicity, self-identity, and social networks. One could easily add to this list a variety of social science sub-disciplines that ask questions about social norms, values and attitudes, demography, life course analysis, leisure time analysis, and many others. The diversity of questions about recreation specialization that each of these social science sub-disciplines could ask may indeed be interesting and important. …