Leisure in Education: A Multi-Contextual Tool

Dear Colleagues,

Thanks to recent advances in democracy, citizenship and rights, leisure has become a multifaceted concept, being inherent in society and extensible to various disciplines, including education. While the pedagogy of leisure emerges strongly as a vital and permanent learning process with the aim of ensuring equal opportunities and achieving the maximum potential of leisure practices, the historical perspective that allows us to understand the evolution of leisure and identification of traditional games and discriminatory and exclusionary practices for certain sectors of the population are also of interest. There is no doubt that there has been a reconceptualisation of leisure, which has urged us to explore not only how the concept of leisure has changed, but also its expansion and generalisation to all sectors of the population and spheres, as well as the many possible ways in which it manifests itself.

Leisure pedagogy aims to transmit to the population a conceptualisation of leisure as a freely lived act in which integral development and satisfaction are indispensable requirements. Formal, non-formal and informal educational environments facilitate the inclusion of the human being in this formative process, being represented by various agents, such as the school, the family, associations or the administration itself.

However, certain unhealthy leisure options still present a danger, evoking a mistaken idea of how leisure time should be enjoyed. The solution lies in presenting leisure as a means of guidance and counselling which, in key stages such as adolescence or childhood, forms the basis of these practices. In this way, leisure experiences, as an educational tool with great versatility, offer a multiplicity of learning opportunities (knowledge, attitudes, values, skills, abilities and behaviours) regardless of the evolutionary stage of the person and multiple benefits such as awakening motivation and interest, human development, participation, self-esteem, inclusion, citizenship, liberation from stress and work anxiety, socialisation, intergenerational relations, etc.

The growth of scientific production has been generic and dispersed, which does not facilitate the visualisation of the potential of this subject. Moreover, the existing monographs are old or excessively specific. Therefore, we propose a broad monograph on leisure and education that covers different age groups, types of leisure, educational contexts and reference agents. To this end, we accept different empirical, qualitative, quantitative or mixed studies, the implementation and evaluation of intervention proposals based on leisure education or methodological studies and theoretical reviews that provide new knowledge in this field of study. Topics of interest include the following:

• Leisure and citizenship (inclusion, entrepreneurship, etc.);
• Family leisure;
• Leisure, sport, therapy and health;
• Leisure in the elderly: possibilities and improvements;
• Leisure and academic performance;
• Intergenerational leisure;
• Technological leisure;
• Leisure and emotional education;
• Gamified leisure;
• Cultural leisure (tourism, museums, historical heritage, etc...);
• Training of leisure professionals;
• Leisure guidance and counselling;
• Leisure interventions in associations and schools;
• Leisure in rural contexts;
• Professionalisation of leisure.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Education Sciences.

Dr. Mª Ángeles Hernández-Prados
Dr. José Santiago Álvarez-Muñoz
Guest Editors

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• family
• leisure
• technology
• learning
• sport
• culture