European Emerging Adults in the Context of Free Time and Leisure

• Main Author: Layland, Eric K.
• Format: Others
• Published: BYU ScholarsArchive 2013
• Subjects: emerging adult; leisure; free time; Europe; identity; metaphor analysis; Recreation Business
• Online Access: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/3701; https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4700&context=etd

Research on emerging adulthood has increased over the past decade, including further investigation of the five features of emerging adulthood: (a) exploring identity, (b) instability, (c) focus on self, (d) feeling in-between, and (e) possibilities (Arnett, 2004). Despite an increased focus on this age period (i.e., 18 -- 29 year olds), research has not addressed the context of free time and leisure. Trends among European emerging adults include increased delay of marriage, decreased childbirth, and general postponement of adult markers. Both the high cultural valuation of leisure and the apparent change in patterns of external markers (i.e., sustained low fertility rates, delayed age of first marriage, declining national populations) in Europe, made Europe a prime setting for studying the leisure of emerging adults. This case study reviews the features of emerging adulthood in a leisure context across European cultures. Using data collected in interviews, the content analysis illustrates the prominence of identity exploration in emerging adults of Europe compared to the four other features of emerging adulthood in a leisure context. Further cultural discourse analysis highlights leisure as a resource for accessing opportunity and a space for freely making choices. The discourse analysis also includes the reconstruction of the cultural schema regarding leisure and each of the five features of emerging adulthood.