Sociology of leisure

The recreational sociology is a special time of sociology that deals with the special personal freely configurable time.

The recreational sociology was initially a little systematically circumscribed field, which stretched far individual activities ( such as sports, education, entertainment, holidays) were empirically explored and investigated.

Leisure term and change

Horst Opaschowski describes four phases of recreational development in the 20th century:

• After the Second World War to the 50s in leisure was purely recreational after work.
• The consumer society of the 60s and 70s saw the Leisure primarily the satisfaction of social self-expression and of spending money.
• In the 80s the population's interest was not so much addressing the wealth consumption, but shifted to the needs of the common experience and the development of their own lifestyle.
• The hectic period of the 80s was replaced in the 90s by a need for tranquility and inner leisure and manifests itself in the present time by a veritable "Wellness Boom".

Opaschowski understands " leisure" are no longer in conceptual dependency of "work", but as "free time", which is characterized by freedom of choice, conscious decisions and social action. On this basis, he developed a concept that the life into three periods, depending on the existing level of free availability on the time splits:

• Determinationszeit ( self-determined time, such as work, school )
• Obligation time (earmarked activities such as eating, sleeping )
• Disposition time ( available free / self-determined time)