Blowing Open the Serious Leisure-Casual Leisure Dichotomy: What's In There?

‘Real Ale’ Enthusiasts, Serious Leisure and the Costs of Getting ‘Too Serious’ About Beer

“…Scott (2012) thus observes that it is important to acknowledge the gradation of seriousness and specialization in such leisure pursuits. Similarly, both Chris Rojek (2005) and Shen and Yarnal (2010) have warned that conceptualizing serious and casual leisure as a rigid dichotomy, rather than as an index or continuum respectively, can blind analyses to complexities of mixtures of and trajectories between the two. This dynamic has been well evidenced in this article.…”

“…Rather than a shallow distraction from work and the ennui of life under modern capitalism (Clarke & Critcher, 1985), serious leisure can be seen to add meaning and value to the lives of participants and can readily become a significant source of personal or group identification in ways which casual leisure does not (Cohen-Gewerc & Stebbins, 2013). The serious leisure perspective has been applied and tested in a range of empirical studies (Shen & Yarnal, 2010). These include activities as diverse as long-distance hiking (Littlefield & Siudzinski, 2012), 'living history' historical re-enactment (Hunt, 2004), belly dancing (Kraus, 2013), rock climbing (Dilley & Scraton, 2010), volunteering in community projects (Gallant, Arai & Smale, 2013) and grassroots organizations (Bendle & Patterson, 2009) and English folk 'morris dancing' (Spracklen & Henderson 2013).…”

From dabbler to serious amateur musician and beyond: Clarifying a crucial step

“…In this integration the recreationists are looked on as neophytes (referred to in Stebbins 1979 as novices). That is, what has become known as the 'seriousness dimension' has attracted some recent scholarly attention by Scott (2012) and Shen and Yarnal (2010), all three of whom have elaborated in the greatest detail yet the idea of a 'CL-SL' (serious-casual leisure) continuum. This continuum has a number of merits.…”

Exploring the Relationship Between Different Types of Serious Leisure and Successful Aging

“…However, due to the absence of a clear standard to distinguish serious leisure participants from casual leisure participants (Shen & Yarnal, 2010;Shinew & Parry, 2005), we decided to use the mean score of the scale, 72 (18 questions × 8 points/2), as the operational standard to divide the sample into two groups: serious leisure participants and casual leisure participants. Consequently, the participants' mean score for the SLIM was 113.01, and the range of scores was 77-144, with a standard deviation of 16.05.…”