Leisure and Aging : A Content Analysis of U.S. Leisure Textbooks and Leisure Academic Journal Articles

Leisure and Aging: A Content Analysis of U.S. Leisure Textbooks and Leisure Academic Journal Articles analyzes how older adults are portrayed in United States leisure textbooks and academic journal articles which are typically used to educate and train recreation professionals. This book explores whether or not leisure textbooks published in the U.S. addressed the topic of aging and if so, to what extent. A content analysis of 54 leisure textbooks from six U.S. publication companies and 79 leisure journal articles from four main U.S. leisure journals (1994-2008) was conducted. The results revealed that out of 16,855 textbook pages only 1.21% of pages (an average of 0.012 pages per book) were dedicated to the topic of older adults. Results also revealed that there was an average of 1.3 journal articles per journal each year that were dedicated to this topic. In comparison to youth literature, older adults were overlooked in both academic leisure journal articles and leisure textbooks.