The contribution of valuable leisure experience to satisfactory aging in the Basque Country (Spain)

Conference main theme Quality of Life in physical education, health and well-being

There exists in the scientific literature growing acknowledgement of an association between leisure activity and successful aging. But, despite the global nature of leisure as a complex human phenomenon, the connections between both constructs have been founded primarily on participation in exercise and sports activities. There is thus a need to explore the contribution of leisure to successful aging from new parameters that take into consideration the quality of experience that leisure provides beyond the impact of physical activity on health and physical well being.

This study is based on the hypothesis that not all types of leisure contribute equally to personal well-being and satisfaction of the elderly. Its basic aim was to identify those aspects of leisure that turn it into a valuable instrument for successful aging.

A questionnaire that incorporated previously-established measurement instruments for serious leisure, subjective well being, and successful aging was administered to 800 people between 65 and 74 years old, residing in Euskadi (Spain). Preliminary findings suggest that Valuable Leisure Experience , i.e. that which contributes most to successful aging, is reflected in patterns of serious leisure, consolidated social life around leisure, and/or the capacity to "savor" leisure experience.

The results of this research may be useful for leisure professionals whose work is aimed at promoting the welfare and quality of life of older people's leisure and education of younger generations. This research has been supported by the IKERBASQUE Foundation, the Basque Government and the Provincial Council of Bizkaia.

Douglas A. Kleiber (Recreation and Leisure Studies program, Department of Counseling and Human Development Services, University of Georgia, USA); Dr. Jaime Cuenca, Dr. María Jesús Monteagudo and Dr. Fernando Bayón (Institute for Leisure Studies, University of Deusto, Spain)

Douglas A. Kleiber is a professor in the Recreation and Leisure Studies Program in the Department of Counseling and Human Development Services at the University of Georgia, with courtesy appointments in the Department of Psychology and the Institute of Gerontology. He has degrees in psychology and educational psychology from Cornell University and the University of Texas, respectively. He is a past president of the Academy of Leisure Sciences and the author of Leisure Experience and Human Development (Basic Books, 1999), A Social Psychology of Leisure (Venture Press, 2011, with Gordon Walker and Roger Mannell) and numerous articles and book chapters on the significance of expressive activity and experience in adjusting to negative life events and other developmental transitions.

Dr. Jaime Cuenca has a degree in philosophy and got his PhD in Leisure Studies at the University of Deusto in 2011. He teaches at the post-graduate level in the Institute for Leisure Studies. As a member of the interdisciplinary research team in Leisure and Human Development he studies the meaning of leisure experience in consumer society. He has presented this line of research in several international scientific meetings and has contributed papers to journals such as Anthropos, Letras de Deusto, Estudios filosóficos or Revista de Ciencias de la Educación. He has spent a research stay in UNAM (México D.F.) in 2010 and another one in the Hochschule für Gestaltung (Karlsruhe, Germany) in 2008-2009.

Dr. Fernando Bayón earned his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Deusto, where he works actually as senior research fellow at the Institute of Leisure Studies. He has been a visiting scholar at the Universities of Tübingen (Germany), ETH-Zürich (Schwitzerland), Princeton (USA) and Yale (USA), and a postdoctoral fellow for five years at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC, Madrid). He has also lectured on his research at many other academic centres D. A. Kleiber; Cuenca; Monteagudo& Bayón LSA Congress 2012. Leisure, Living and Learning 2
abroad, among them the Ibero-american University (Mexico DF) and University of Bologna (Italy). Dr. Bayón has been co-editor of several monographs and has written widely on the crisis of modernity as it is reflected in Arts and Social Sciences, in publications including Arbor, Isegoría, Edizioni ETS, Anthropos, Éndoxa, Theoria cum praxi, Capitán Swing, Libros de la Catarata and others. His two books (ed. Anthropos, 2004 and 2009) have been reviewed in a range of scholarly journals as well as the press.

Dr. María Jesús Monteagudo has a degree in Psychology and got her PhD in Leisure and Human Development at the University of Deusto (Bilbao, Spain) in 2011. She is member of Leisure Studies Institute of this University from 1992 and researches actively as part of the interdisciplinary research team of this Institute. She studies leisure from a psychosociological point of view and the phenomenon of sport as leisure experience. She has developed the construct of leisure itineraries in the context of leisure and leisure sport, leisure benefits and leisure constraints. She has presented the advances of this research line in several scientific meetings and has contributed papers to journals such as Revista Interuniversitaria de Educación Social, ADOZ. Revista de Estudios de Ocio, Revista de Ciencias de la Educación and has been co-editor of several monographs about leisure experience and sport and human development. She is member of the Asociación Española de Investigación Social Aplicada al Deporte (AEISAD), OcioGune. Spanish Network of Leisure Studies Research Teams about Leisure and Human Development and of OTIUM. Latin American Leisure Studies Association.