After-School Activities and Leisure

Education

28

Jaume Trilla, Ana Ayuste, and Ingrid Agud

28.1

Introduction

Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of stories that have filled the leisure time of
many readers both adult and child alike, wrote an essay in 1887 suggestively
entitled An Apology for Idlers which defended the virtues, including those in
the educational sphere, of idleness. He offered the following dialogue between an
upstanding citizen and a boy who, during school hours, was lying under the linden
trees on the bank of a stream:
How now, young fellow, what dost thou here?
Truly, sir, I take mine ease.
Is not this the hour of the class? And shouldst thou not be plying thy Book with diligence,
to the end thou mayest obtain knowledge?
Nay, but this also I follow after Learning, by your leave.
Learning, quotha! After what fashion, I pray thee? Is it mathematics?
No, to be sure.
Is it metaphysics?
Nor that.
Is it some language?
Nay, it is no language.
Is it a trade?
Nor a trade neither.
Why, then, what ist?
Indeed, sir, as a time may soon come for me to go upon Pilgrimage, I am desirous to note
what is commonly done by persons in my case, and where are the ugliest Sloughs and
Thickets on the Road; as also, what manner of Staff is of the best service. Moreover, I lie
here, by this water, to learn by root-of-heart a lesson which my master teaches me to call
Peace, or Contentment. (Stevenson 2009)

J. Trilla (*) A. Ayuste I. Agud

Department of Theory and History of Education, University of Barcelona, Mundet, Campus
Mundet, Llevant, Barcelona, Spain
e-mail: jtrilla@ub.edu; the@ub.edu
A. Ben-Arieh et al. (eds.), Handbook of Child Well-Being,
863
DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_28, # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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The educational universe during Stevensons time was quite different from that
of today. In addition to the informal education that the boy in the story enjoyed and
flaunted, there was the family, the school (which many were unable to attend), and
a few other educational institutions. Nowadays, at least in developed countries,
schooling is compulsory and many other institutions have emerged with explicit
educational purposes. The educational life of our children is no longer limited to
family, school, and the street. In fact, our children spend many hours in school and
little time in the street (and even less beside a stream). After school many children
attend art workshops on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays or basketball practice
Tuesdays and Thursdays for a game on Saturday or Sunday. Some of those who do
not participate in sports take part in weekend activities at recreational centers or are
members of an organization such as the Boy Scouts. Some children might go to the
neighborhood play center or toy library or regularly attend music school. There are
those whose parents have hired a private tutor because they are doing poorly in
math. In summer, some children go to camp for 2 weeks, and because school
holidays are so long and parents have no idea what to do with their children,
some are enrolled in other extracurricular activities. In a study of a large sample
of children and adolescents in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, we found that
more than three fourths of the subjects regularly participated in extracurricular
activities, and more than one third of the sample also participated in more than one
activity (Trilla and Ros 2005).
This chapter is devoted to the entire range of after-school and free-time education
opportunities which are based on two premises that we assume are widely shared. The
first is that free time is important to the welfare and quality of life of people in general,
including children (Levy 2000; Trilla et al. 2001). The second premise is that previous
education influences how a person uses their free time. As expressed, these premises
are hardly debatable. However, while their theoretical and generic formulation may be
generally accepted, there are many significant issues that are far less clear when trying
to specify the premises in more exact terms or when trying to act on them. Do all uses
of free time contribute to the welfare of people and the community? Are some leisure
activities humanly and socially more desirable than others? If so, which ones? Finding
an answer to this question is necessary when addressing the second premise from an
educational perspective. For example, how can education help children enjoy qualitatively better leisure time? What free-time educational institutions, programs, and
resources currently exist and what others should exist? These are the questions we
explore in this chapter.
This chapter is divided into three parts. The first section deals with conceptual
issues related to free time and leisure and their application with respect to children.
The second section discusses the relationship between education and free/leisure
time. It begins by considering the justification for educational intervention into
childrens free time, based on an analysis of values and countervalues of educational intervention. Subsequently, the various aspects of what we call the pedagogy of leisure (education in, for, and through free time) are systematized. We also
devote part of this second section to identifying the factors that have influenced the
development of this education sector. The third section presents the various

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educational environments in which to spend free time, such as institutions, programs, facilities, activities, and resources. These are presented as an index, after
which their shared characteristics are analyzed. Then, in the epilogue, and drawing
on the suggestions offered in Stevensons text, the possible limitations that should
be imposed in the name of childrens welfare on the accumulation of institutionalized educational activities are discussed.

28.2

Free Time and Leisure: Ideas and Realities

28.2.1 The Concept of Free Time

Leisure, free time, and other similar terms such as recreation and idle time
are common expressions whose meanings are clear when they are used colloquially.
When we try to define them rigorously or use them in real situations, however, we
realize that the concepts they represent are not always as clear as they seem. We
devote this first section of the chapter to these conceptual issues and to proposing
certain stipulations that will be useful for the remainder of the chapter.
Initially, the concepts of free time and leisure are usually defined as the opposite
of work. Free time would be the time left once an individual has fulfilled his or her
obligations at work (in the case of adults) or at school (in the case of children).
Nevertheless, it is obvious that not all non-work time (or non-school time) is real
free time. The time allocated to ones basic biological needs and certain family
obligations would not be classified as free time. The formulas normally used for
a rough definition of free time or leisure are shown in Fig. 28.1. This simple outline,
which may be valid as a first approximation, is clearly insufficient when it is used in
an in-depth exploration of the real structure of the time and activities of todays
complex society. In our view, the outline is insufficient for the following three
reasons:
1. Because it is only really applicable in the case of working adults or in-school
children. The outline does not address what free time or leisure represents for
those social groups who do not work or attend school. For example, what is free
time for a prisoner, a sick person, the unemployed, or a child excluded from the
education system? Are these people fortunate to have plenty of non-work time,
or does their particular situation make it difficult for or even deny them the
possibility to truly enjoy leisure? At this point it would be helpful in the
framework of our social-labor context to interpret a consideration made by de
Grazia (2000) when commenting on Aristotles concept of leisure. De Grazia
explains that for a Greek philosopher, the condition for enjoying leisure is not
only to have non-occupied time at ones disposal, but more accurately to be
freed from the need to be busy. In this sense, people who ought to be working but
are unemployed would not be in the best condition to enjoy leisure, despite
having all time in the world at their disposal. Based on this idea, it could be said
that only those who have freed themselves from the need to work for a while
because they have worked before, or those who, as in Aristotles times, did not

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Fig. 28.1 Simple outline of

the concepts of free time and
leisure

NON-WORK TIME

WORK TIME
(SCHOOL TIME)

BIOLOGICAL
NEEDS,
FAMILY and
SOCIAL
OBLIGATIONS, etc.

LEISURE
or
FREE TIME

have to work because they had an army of slaves to do it for them, are truly able
to appreciate leisure.
2. The outline is also insufficient because it does not include activities or times
which for certain people have a marked quantitative or qualitative significance.
For the religiously devout, is time devoted to their religious practices free time? Is
time a person dedicates to philanthropic tasks or volunteer work leisure time? The
outline in Fig. 28.1 is overly simplistic, requiring very dissimilar activities to be
placed in the same bag, activities to which people no doubt assign a very different
meaning. The central sector of the outline would have to include a diverse range
of activities all grouped together such as personal hygiene, standing in line to
renew your passport, praying, taking care of children, or carrying out acts of
solidarity. To address this, some authors have introduced other terms or concepts
into the discourse on time which highlight the insufficiency of the simple division
between work and free time or leisure. Concepts such as socially useful time
and idle time (instead of free time) suggest the need to use a more complex and
precise outline than the one proposed in Fig. 28.1.
3. The outline is too simple because it does not provide criteria to distinguish
between free time and leisure. It is true that in everyday language both expressions are used interchangeably. In some cases, however, it may be appropriate to
distinguish them based on the denotative or connotative contents that they both
represent. On the one hand, free time, literally refers to an area or specific type of
overall time, while leisure seems to refer to a type of activity. Free time would
be, so to speak, a container, and leisure would be its possible content.
We therefore propose a more precise model than the previous one, overcoming
some of the limitations mentioned above (Trilla 1993a). In the outline in Fig. 28.2,
we no longer start out from the difference between work and free time or leisure but
from two more general, clearer categories that we call available time and
nonavailable time. These categories are explained in more detail below, but, in
short, nonavailable time is that which individuals have committed to tasks that
cannot be avoided. It is time usually governed by external forces, dictated by
inescapable obligations according to the status of the individual. Available time
would be that which remains.
Nonavailable time can be divided into the time spent directly or indirectly by
work (or school for children) and the time occupied by what we call non-work

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Professional work (or school)

Work (or
school)

Housework
Outside-work (or extra-curricular)
activities
Basic biological needs

Non-available
Non-work
obligations

Family obligations
Social obligations

TIME

Religious activities
Self-imposed
social
occupations

Social volunteering activities

Other institutionalised training activities

Available
Non-autotelic personal occupations.
Free time

Sterile free time

Leisure

(J. Trilla)

Fig. 28.2 Complex outline of free time and leisure

obligations. In the first case, we have paid work or housework and the time spent on
work-associated or school-associated activities such as travelling or homework.
In the non-work obligations category we include basic biological needs: sleep,
personal hygiene, and eating. We call them basic because when the time taken for
such needs exceeds the strictly necessary minimum, or when we add another
dimension to those activities, they acquire an additional significance (or even
a different substantive significance) which would place them in another category.
Sleeping-in on a Sunday morning just for pleasure or a meal where gastronomic or
social enjoyment are the main motivations would be activities closer to leisure than
to the nonavailable time category. The second non-work obligation is family
obligations such as looking after children, and the third is social, administrative,
and bureaucratic obligations such as completing income tax returns.
After discounting these times, there is some time left that we can use with much
greater discretion. This is what we call available time. Available time also has two
subcategories: the time for self-imposed social occupation and genuine free time.
The difference between the two is that for the first type we make a commitment,
albeit independently and voluntarily, with an authority beyond our control.
Examples of self-imposed social occupations would be certain religious activities,
voluntary activities with social purposes (volunteering in the strict sense of the
word, political affiliation, trade-union membership), and institutionalized training
activities. In these latter activities we do not include the formal schooling of
children since for them this would be comparable to adult professional work.

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In all these cases, the commitment is acquired voluntarily, but until the individual
decides to end it, his or her decisions will be determined by others. The difference
between self-imposed social occupations and genuine free time is often very subtle
but can be illustrated with examples. An individual can decide to devote time to
reading poetry on a daily basis, but if one day he fails to do so he does not have
explain it to anyone since he has not established any external commitment. However, if a young person, with the same autonomy, decides to dedicate every
Saturday afternoon to being a child-group facilitator, he makes a commitment to
an external body. Therefore, if he does not show up on Saturday, he should
apologize and give a reason why. To put it another way, in self-imposed social
occupations the individual voluntarily gives up a portion of his available time to an
institution (philanthropic, political, trade-union body), and the management of that
time is transferred, to a certain extent, to that institution.
Finally, genuine free time can be further divided into three different kinds of
activities: nonautotelic voluntary occupations, sterile free time, and leisure in its
strictest sense. In a nonautotelic voluntary activity, the subject has absolute autonomy in deciding whether and how to carry out the activity, but the activity is not the
end in itself and performing the activity is not necessarily pleasant. An example
could be activities related to cultivating the body beyond that necessary to maintain
health. The difference between these and leisure activities is that the main motivation of the former is the achievement of something other than the gratification
offered by the activity itself. Those who devote a portion of their free time to lying
in a tanning machine do not always do so for the pleasure offered by this act but
rather to show off a tan.
Sterile free time is poorly lived free time, i.e., time that generates feelings of tedium
and frustration, a whiling away of time but with a bad conscience. It is called sterile
time not because it is not productive (because leisure is not productive either),
but because when a person does not produce anything, there is no satisfaction for
that person who has sterile time on his hands. Sterile time is time to which not even the
subject himself gives significance.

28.2.2 Three Basic Conditions of Leisure and Their Application to

Childhood
The concept of leisure refers to a type of activity rather than a type of time. Leisure
is closely related to free time, but the two should not be confused or considered to
be exactly the same. In this section, we first discuss one of the most classic and wellknown definitions of leisure, proposed some years ago by the French sociologist
J. Dumazedier; and second, we propose a more restrictive and coherent characterization of leisure in accordance with the preceding outline and considerations.
Based on a survey of individuals perception of leisure taken early in the second
half of the last century, Joffre Dumazedier (1915-2002) proposed the following
definition of leisure (Dumazedier 1960): Leisure consists of a number of

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occupations in which the individual may indulge of his own free will either to rest,
to amuse himself, to add to his knowledge or improve his skills disinterestedly or to
increase his voluntary participation in the life of the community after discharging
his professional, family and social duties. After stating that leisure is a kind of
activity or occupation, Dumazedier proposes one of its most essential characteristics: its voluntary nature. To be considered a leisure activity, it must give the
individual the freedom to decide to do it or not. The definition goes on to give
the characteristic functions of leisure: rest, amusement, and development. Finally,
the definition establishes the conditions that make leisure possible. Leisure can take
place once the individual has freed a portion of his time from work, family, and
social obligations. Dumazediers definition thus offers a broader conceptualization
than that proposed by the previous outline since it coincides with what we call
available time. In this sense, a different way to characterize leisure is that it consists
of any activity in whose performance the following three conditions converge:
autonomy, autotelism, and pleasure/satisfaction.

28.2.2.1 Autonomy
We understand the first condition, which we call autonomy, but for which other
words such as freedom or voluntariness are also often used, in a twofold sense:
autonomy in the what and autonomy in the how. Autonomy in the what means
freedom to choose the activity. Thus, leisure presupposes the existence of free time.
He who has no free time according to the characterization of the concept we
propose above is unlikely to enjoy leisure. Autonomy in the how means that
during the activity the individual maintains control over its development and how it
unfolds. However, since these concepts (autonomy, freedom, and voluntariness) are
extremely complex and subjective, and to avoid falling into an idealistic or idyllic
view of leisure, we must add at least two additional clarifications. First, the
autonomy referred to is relative. It is obvious that as in any other aspect of life,
autonomy in leisure is never total. In relation to leisure activity, each individual
enjoys a defined level of autonomy that we call the freedom field, which is made
up of a variety of factors, discussed below.
Contextual factors. The context (family, social, cultural, geographic) gives the
subject a set of possibilities with which to fill his leisure with content. These
possibilities refer to the availability of spaces, resources, and products, as well as
to that of people with whom he can relate (peer groups, family, friends). Thus, the
freedom field of a specific individuals real free time depends upon the range,
diversity, and richness of the set of possibilities that his context offers. As a simple
example, if someone lives in a tropical country, the daily practice of Nordic skiing
is not part of his freedom field.
Socioeconomic factors. While important, contextual factors often do not act
alone in determining leisure activity. In fact, what really affects this is the place
the individual occupies in the context, e.g., his social role or economic status.
Accessibility to certain leisure possibilities offered by the context also depends
on the individuals ability to afford them economically.

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Psychophysiological factors. Each persons freedom field is limited (or enabled)

by their psychophysiological and evolutionary status. Leisure options vary
depending on each individuals development, state of health, and so on.
Stereotypes and selective or discriminatory traditions. The leisure context also
includes a set of social codes, moral norms, customs, traditions, fashions, and
stereotypes that constrict real possibilities in the use of free time. Such codes
guide and sometimes impose (or deny) certain leisure pursuits according to variables such as gender and family role (e.g., girls have to play with dolls, and boys
with toy soldiers).
Educogenic factors. The personal and, in particular, educational background
(schools, family, and informal education) determine the leisure of each person.
Depending on this background, certain individuals will have the necessary aptitude,
abilities, skills, and disposition (or not) to make a leisure activity viable. There are
cultural and instrumental skills (languages, techniques, knowledge) and propensities that are necessary to be able to enjoy certain kinds of leisure. While a person
may be able to afford a certain activity, unless their previous education has instilled
in them a certain predisposition for that activity it is unlikely to form part of their
field of possible choices. A child choosing to read for leisure depends not only on
the availability of books or libraries but also on whether his or her education has
aroused a taste for reading.
Another point that needs to be made about autonomy as an essential condition
for leisure is that it must be understood as a subjective feeling of autonomy,
something akin to what Neulinger (2000) calls perceived freedom. Leisure can
be and indeed often is induced, manipulated, or alienated. Moreover, in this
sense and as is discussed later, leisure can be more subtly or subliminally induced
than other activities that are imposed in a direct or explicit way. However, to call
something leisure, the subject must at least have the subjective consciousness that
he is acting voluntarily, even when objectively and from the outside it may be
obvious that the individual is being heavily manipulated. At this point we are not
trying to define positive leisure, just leisure and nothing more. Consequently, while
the individual is aware, albeit incorrectly, that he or she has chosen leisure autonomously, even the most manipulated and unconsciously directed leisure is no less
leisure than leisure of the most personal, creative, and truly autonomous nature.

28.2.2.2 Autotelism
The second condition in defining leisure is autotelism, highlighted by Aristotle as
the most essential part of this concept. It means that the leisure activity has purpose
in and of itself (Cuenca 2004). Even when the activity can produce certain results or
material goods, and even when one of the individuals motivations is to obtain such
an outcome, the first justification of the activity must be the intrinsic satisfaction
that it is able to produce. A person who likes fishing, if successful, obtains
a material product from the activity a fish that he can eat or give to friends.
However, a pure leisure activity seeks no reward; it is partaken in because the
fisherman likes fishing and feels good when doing it. As is well known, many
fishing enthusiasts return their catch to the sea.

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28.2.2.3 Pleasure and Satisfaction

This brings us to the third essential condition: leisure as a pleasant task, satisfactory
and fun. An unpleasant, boring, or tedious leisure activity is, if anything, simply
failed leisure; it is not really leisure at all but the sterile time discussed above. The
pleasure or satisfaction referred to here, however, should not be confused with the
most rudimentary or prosaic meaning of amusement. The leisure activity does not
necessarily mean laughter and revelry, it means being happy with what you are
doing. And leisure does not exclude effort. Those who devote leisure time to
solving intricate chess problems call upon a considerable amount of intellectual
effort, and the physical or psychological effort of those who climb mountains is no
less significant. However, both chess and mountain-climbing may well be considered leisure because despite being activities whose pursuit requires effort, they are
also enjoyable to those who participate in them.
To summarize, regardless of a particular activity, leisure consists of the use of
free time to engage in an autotelic occupation, autonomously chosen and
performed, whose practice is pleasant for the individual.
The concept of leisure must be applied to the different stages of life, taking into
consideration the specific parameters (especially social and psychophysiological)
that characterize each stage. Specifically, childrens leisure has two features that at
first glance appear contradictory: one that plays down autonomy and another that
would make childhood a privileged period for leisure.
If it is possible to establish comparisons between the different stages of life
based on the role played in each of them by the extremes of security-autonomy,
dependence-independence, or control-freedom, it is obvious that, in general terms,
during childhood the importance of or need for the first term in each pair is greater
than in subsequent stages. Psychogenic and physiological characteristics, socioeconomic conditions, and legal frameworks constrict the possible autonomy of a child
in favor of protection and custody. These questions, which naturally affect all
aspects of a childs life, are particularly relevant with regard to leisure. Physical
and mental immaturity, economic dependence, and laws that limit the legal responsibilities of children define the possibilities for childrens leisure that render them
qualitatively and quantitatively different from those of an adult. In terms of an
absolute and somewhat idealistic concept of freedom, this would mean that the
level of autonomy in childrens leisure is lower than in the following stages of life.
However, even if that were true, it would be nothing more than a trivial finding
unless it produced more operational consequences.
The greater need for custody in childhood can be understood either as a restriction on a childs autonomy of leisure or, more positively, as a requirement for
a more appropriate form of protection and oversight of the childs possible autonomy. Since this autonomy is more fragile, more easily manipulated, and more open
to arbitrariness exercised by persons and institutions that have control over childhood, appropriate mechanisms must be established to protect child leisure. Some of
these mechanisms already exist but are not always adequate. They are often ladened
with adult projections, double standards, and an excessively protectionist spirit.
Rather than actually protecting childrens leisure, these mechanisms limit and

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reduce childrens leisure even more than may be justified or reasonable. Of course,
it is not easy to find the right balance between security-autonomy, dependenceindependence, and control-freedom, but if in all aspects of childhood the search for
such balance is necessary, in that of leisure it appears as one of the principal
educational challenges.
While it is true that childrens leisure is more constrained than that of adults,
paradoxically there exists a diffuse ideology that considers childhood a privileged
period for leisure and play. Indeed, a good deal of what constitutes the cultural
concept of childhood which, according to the well-known thesis of Arie`s (1996),
has been forged in the modern age is made up of elements that are related to
leisure. Todays concept of childhood is being shaped by progressive schooling, the
consequent distancing of the world of work, formation of the bourgeois nuclear
family, and other elements often closely related to leisure, e.g., specific clothes for
children, differentiation between child and adult games, the emergence of childspecific literature, and so on.
This modern concept of childhood is basically represented through three additional images that place the child respectively in the school, the family, and at play.
Literature and iconography illustrate these three images corresponding to the three
fundamental roles in modern childhood: the schoolchild, the child as son/
daughter, and the playing child. Thus, the world of play becomes one of the
three fundamental contexts of childhood. And no sooner do we consider it a world
typical of that period, the social construct excludes all other periods of life from the
recreational world: adult play, for example, is thought of as childish, a residue of
childhood, or at best something accepted as a way of keeping physically and
mentally fit for work and thus subordinate to it. In this construct, it is most
appropriate for a child to learn and play and for an adult to work. Thus, according
to this modern view of the roles of each stage of life, the world of play and by
extension, leisure corresponds, in a privileged fashion, to childhood.

28.3

Leisure and Education

28.3.1 Justification of Educational Intervention: Values and

Countervalues in the Context of Free Time and Leisure
Social representations of free time and leisure have differed throughout history.
Both positive and negative images of leisure have been created. Leisure as something positive and desirable is how it was portrayed in classic Greece and Rome,
with different contents in each case. The ancient Greeks and Romans understood
leisure as a value, even as something dignified that could make life virtuous and
happy. Conversely, leisure has at various times been represented as just the
opposite, a countervalue, a vice, or the source of all evil. This is the Puritan concept
of leisure that dominated certain attitudes from the seventeenth century and is still
present today, though perhaps only residually.

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In this sense it is interesting to note how certain reflections that tried to propose
a positive social image of leisure provocatively used the negative connotations
imposed by bourgeois Puritanism on such terms as laziness or idleness. In The Right
to Be Lazy (1880), Marxs son-in-law Paul Lafargue argues that we should aspire
not to the right to work, but to the right to welfare. He began the first chapter of his
work with the following quote from Lessing: Let us be lazy in everything, except
in loving and drinking, except in being lazy (Lafargue 2002). In a 1932 essay
suggestively entitled In Praise of Idleness, Bertrand Russell wrote:
Like most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying: Satan finds some mischief
for idle hands to do. Being a highly virtuous child, I believed all that I was told,
and acquired a conscience which has kept me working hard down to the present moment.
But although my conscience has controlled my actions, my opinions have undergone
a revolution. I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense
harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in
modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.
Everyone knows the story of the traveler in Naples who saw twelve beggars lying in the
sun (it was before the days of Mussolini), and offered a lira to the laziest of them. Eleven
of them jumped up to claim it, so he gave it to the twelfth. This traveler was on the
right lines. . . . The wise use of leisure, it must be conceded, is a product of civilization
and education. A man who has worked long hours all his life will become bored if he
becomes suddenly idle. But without a considerable amount of leisure a man is cut off from
many of the best things. There is no longer any reason why the bulk of the population
should suffer this deprivation; only a foolish asceticism, usually vicarious, makes us
continue to insist on work in excessive quantities now that the need no longer exists
(Russell 1960).

As we mentioned before, free time is basically like a container. It can host

values and countervalues, positive social functions, and other more dubious
contents, positive leisure and negative leisure all at the same time. Thus, it
would be realistic and reasonable to see that just as any other social reality in
a world of contradictions, free time and leisure are ambivalent and contradictory
realities.
Figure 28.3 summarizes some of the values ascribed to leisure and their
corresponding countervalues, which are discussed in the following sections.

28.3.1.1 Freedom, Autonomy, Independence versus Alienation,

Manipulation, Dependence, and Control
Free time is, as the name suggests, an area of freedom, a time when personal
autonomy should dominate when choosing an activity and how to do it. It is the
freedom in the what and the how mentioned above. However, it is also a time
for alienation and manipulation: alienation made more dangerous because we are
not generally aware of it. We all know only too well that work is usually subject to
someone elses decisions or processes that we cannot personally control; yet at the
same time we may be under the impression that we do what we want in our free
time, when in reality it is a time often subject to hidden pressures, stereotypes,
fashions, and control.

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VALUES
freedom, autonomy

COUNTER - VALUES
alienation, uniformity, manipulation

happiness, pleasure, amusement

frustration, boredom, tedium

autotelism, disinterested knowledge

ostentation, leisure merchandise

creativity, personalisation

consumerism, mass production

sociability, communication

isolation, lack of communication,

negative solitude

activity, self-motivated effort

passivity, indolence

culture

cultural trivialisation

everyday values

monotony, inertia

extraordinary values

extravagance, the bizarre

solidarity, social participation

lack of solidarity, indifference

Fig. 28.3 Values and countervalues of leisure and free time

28.3.1.2 Happiness, Pleasure, Amusement versus Frustration,

Boredom, Tedium
The other essential feature of a leisure activity is the satisfaction or pleasure
produced by its realization. However, free time is also a producer of dissatisfaction,
frustration, unhappiness, boredom, and tedium. Leisure activity can produce
dissatisfaction when we do not have access to certain products because the leisure
activity is something that creates want and at the same time is extraordinarily
selective and discriminatory. Frustration can arise from having high expectations
(e.g., about a holiday) that will never be achieved. Free time can also produce
unhappiness in the form of a guilty conscience generated by the still-present Puritan
work ethic because we are not doing something apparently useful or profitable.
Finally, free time (supposedly the quintessential time for pleasure) is occasionally
a time of boredom and tedium, sometimes because it is not easy to ascribe any sense
to such time since it is yet to be fairly valued by society, and sometimes because we
have not had the opportunity to learn how to use it satisfactorily.
28.3.1.3 Autotelism, Disinterested Knowledge (Value of Use) Versus
Utilitarianism, Ostentation, Leisure Merchandise (Value of
Exchange)
We have already seen that according to the Aristotelian concept, leisure is an activity
that has an end in itself. However, in contrast to this autotelic leisure value, there is
the countervalue of leisure as a form of ostentation, as shown by Thorsten Veblen in

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his now classic work from 1899, The Theory of the Leisure Class: leisure as
a symbol of status, wealth, and power (Veblen 2004). An example would be one
who travels not for the pleasure of travelling in itself, but to show off that he can
afford to go to fashionable destinations. This leisure merchandise includes the free
time of those who use tanning machines or work out in the gym, not for health or
wellness but to show off their fantastically beautiful body. Countervalue also
includes the value of free time employed in activities and relationships by
those whose aim is to climb the social ladder. Leisure is thus perverted when its
ostentatious function predominates over its value of use and the very sense of the
activity itself.

28.3.1.4 Creativity, Personalization, Difference versus Consumerism,

Mass Production
It is said that leisure is also the most suitable time for exercising creativity, for an
occupation dominated by the highly personal nuance that each individual can give
it, a time for personalization, originality, creativity, and authenticity. However, the
opposite often occurs: leisure pursuits can be the most mass-produced, vulgar,
uniform, and mediocre of all human activities. It is not difficult to perceive the
real contradiction that leisure (the abstract kingdom of personalization) is something even more impersonal than work itself. It would be hard to find 100,000
individuals doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same moment at work, yet
this occurs regularly at a football stadium or when thousands are on the road
returning from a leisurely weekend, or millions of people are watching the same
TV show at the same time.
In regard to consumerism, we can see that not only has the consumption of
products and services and the use of institutions and professionals become essential
for leisure, consumption itself has become a leisure activity. Going shopping (or
window-shopping) and walking around the mall are considered leisure activities as
much as going for a walk, to the cinema, or to the theatre.
28.3.1.5 Sociability, Communication Versus Isolation, Lack of
Communication, Negative Solitude
Free time is a special time for social relationships and communication but it is also
a time when solitude (of the negative or unwanted variety) is even more obvious
and pathetic than in any other moment in life (Kelly 1983). The loneliest solitude is
what we feel when alone at a party, when we have no one to go out with on
a Saturday evening or to go on holiday with.
Likewise, there are other pairs of values and countervalues that fall into free
time: time for activity, self-motivated effort, indolence, and passivity, or, in contrast, time for frenetic, blind activism, culture, banality, and cultural frivolity; space
where the best of the everyday can be realized (relaxed relationships with others,
gathering for coffee, and the small, enriching hobbies we all have), as can the worst
of monotony, inertia, and routine; time too for the extraordinary, adventure, but also
fertile ground for simple extravagance; and finally, time for solidarity and social
participation as well as for indifference and not caring.

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Free time is, therefore, an ambivalent and contradictory reality: a container filled
with the best and the worst contents, the best and the worst possibilities. Pedagogy
must begin to recognize it as such because it is precisely this ambivalence that
justifies educational intervention in leisure. If free time were an idyllic reality,
a world in which freedom, creativity, sociability, and solidarity truly predominate,
pedagogical action would be unnecessary if not hazardous: If it aint broke, dont
fix it. If free time were the best of all worlds, there would be no reason to improve
it with education. The fact that free time leaves much to be desired is precisely the
reason that educational action is needed.
On the other hand, if free time failed to offer real expectations of social and
human development, pedagogy should not intervene either, and it would be better to
find a more suitable area for intervention (Kleiber 1999, 2001). The pedagogy of
leisure makes sense precisely because of the ambivalent reality of free time;
because leisure time is abounding in values and countervalues, in positive and
negative possibilities, in noble and harmful contents, and in which educational
action can help optimize. To achieve this, however, the educational intervention
would have no alternative than to make value choices, options that will promote
certain forms of leisure and reject others. That is perhaps why after highlighting its
virtues in general, so many experts who have studied the educational issues relating
to leisure end up qualifying it with adjectives: creative leisure (Csikszentmihalyi
2002), serious leisure (Stebbins 1992, 2007), humanist leisure (Cuenca 2000).
Without these or other positive adjectives, educational intervention in leisure
would be confused and aimless.

28.3.2 Purpose of the Pedagogy of Leisure

The relationship between education and free time/leisure is often approached on the
basis of the two concepts respectively referred to as education in free time and
education for free time. In the former, free time would simply be a space
that could be used to host some type of educational activity. In the latter, free
time becomes the educational objective. Both approaches are logically distinct
but not necessarily conflicting or contradictory. In analyzing them a possible area
of convergence can be seen (Fig. 28.4). When free time is taken as a space for
some educational process (education in free time), there are two possibilities: One
is that the process is oriented toward purposes that have nothing directly to do with
leisure, e.g., the child who has to devote some part of his non-school time to
receiving private classes. The other possibility is that the educational process that
takes place in free time is directed at developing some kind of knowledge, skill, or
attitude that allows the individual to use his leisure in a richer, more positive, and
pleasant way.
Something similar occurs when free time is understood as an objective (education
for free time). Two alternatives may also be considered in this case: that education for
free time can be achieved in typically leisure situations or in contexts outside that of
leisure, such as the school (Ruskin and Sivan 2002; Sivan 2008). It is conceivable that

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Aimed at nonleisure purposes

Education IN
free time
Aimed at leisure
purposes

Education
THROUGH
leisure

In leisure situations.

Education FOR
free time
In non-leisure
situations

Fig. 28.4 Relationship between education and free time. The purpose of the pedagogy of leisure

even in its curricular activity, the institution of school could include among its goals the
provision of cultural resources that enable richer leisure possibilities. For example,
the subjects of language and literature could be useful not only for learning spelling
or the history of literature, but also for developing the capability and sensibility to
enjoy reading.
Doubtless the core of the outline described above would constitute a more
specific justification of the pedagogy of leisure. That is to say, the most suitable
purpose of such pedagogy would be to educate simultaneously in and for leisure.
In fact, the combination of both approaches reinforces each individually. To use
free time for purposes contradictory to it, though perfectly legitimate, means
converting that time into something else; this free time evidently ceases to be
experienced as such. On the other hand, it seems that the best way to educate for
leisure is to do so in free time, in other words, through leisure. It would not
be necessary to insist on this if we were not so accustomed to forgetting the simple
core statement of active pedagogy: What we learn is what we do. The best way to
learn how to use free time in a very autonomous, pleasant, and creative way is
naturally through situations and activities that effectively make such conditions
a reality.
Thus, in a limited sense the pedagogy of leisure would be education through
leisure (that is, simultaneously in and for free time). In a broader sense, however, it
may also include the other possibilities mentioned in the full outline.

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28.3.3 Factors in the Development of the Pedagogy of Leisure

Having described the general justification for educational intervention in leisure,
we now examine a number of factors that have motivated the emergence and
development of a diverse but quantitatively significant set of institutions, programs,
resources, facilities, and educational activities related to childrens free time. We
consider the reasons for the proliferation of free-time educational centers, toy
libraries, extracurricular activities, summer camps, scouts and guides, and a long
and varied list of other organized educational provisions in our society.
There are two reasons for the appearance and development of new educational
institutions or interventions. The first stems, in principle, from outside education
itself and consists of social, economic, demographic, and political factors. There are
educational needs that arise as a consequence of phenomena that initially have little
to do directly with education. A clear example is nursery schools. Centers for
early-childhood education were first created not so much for educational needs
but rather for custody. It was the incorporation of women into the work world
outside the home that caused the need for such schools. It is from there that
the pedagogical discourses began to emerge to legitimate on the one hand and
implement on the other this form of infant education. Applying this idea to the other
end of life, the same could be said of the increasingly cited and demanded
pedagogy for the elderly. Interventions and programs with educational content
addressed to senior citizens have not appeared because only now have we discovered that the elderly can continue learning (this has always been known), but
rather because of factors as far from pedagogy as the increase of life expectancy
or the advancement of the retirement age. In short, pedagogical actions are often
responses to situations produced by factors that are not initially directly related to
education.
It is also true that this kind of sociologistic explanation for educational intervention does not entirely address its raison detre. Social factors explain the
emergence of the need for and characteristics of a certain area of action, but they
cannot account for the peculiarity of the educational response that such need
receives. In order to prepare a response, pedagogy has to be theoretically and
technically prepared. It is for this reason that clarification of the genesis of new
educational interventions also demands recourse to the internal pedagogical discourse, to its conceptual and theoretical basis, to the technical background it has
accumulated, and to possible antecedents that prepare and facilitate new educational actions.

28.3.3.1 Social Factors

Among other possible factors outside the field of educational science that have
converged to create the need for educational institutions addressing childrens free
time, there are two that are particularly relevant and paradigmatic. One is the
gradual disappearance of traditional spaces for spontaneous play and the informal
horizontal socialization of children, and the other is the partial loss of the familys
role in safeguarding and giving content to their childrens leisure.

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It is hardly surprising that the pedagogy of leisure was originally

a fundamentally but not exclusively urban reality. It was in cities where the need
for playgrounds, toy libraries, and organized summer activities urgently arose. This
was primarily due to the very young being increasingly deprived of their traditional
spaces for play and peer relationships. Traffic and safety issues expropriated the
street from children, and land speculation and excessive construction did the same
with other natural spontaneous play spaces (vacant plots of land, nonurbanized
areas). It is true, however, that play can be adapted to environmental conditions.
Moreover, the conditions themselves often become the reason for or means of the
recreational activity. The city, as Jane Jacobs (1961) brilliantly described in The
Death and Life of Great American Cities, with its streets and squares, markets and
shops, neighbors and passers-by, trees and pavement, has served as a stimulus,
argument, playing field, hideout, and place for adventure for childrens spontaneous
amusement. However, despite this huge capacity for play to adapt, which materially
and symbolically transforms any environment into a space and object for play, there
is a point where conditions become so adverse that this proves impossible. The city
then becomes a dangerous and hostile place for the child (Tonucci 1997). It is true
that the sight of children playing in the street is disappearing from the urban
landscape, thus creating the need for alternative scenarios: toy libraries, enclosed
and expressly designed playgrounds, or commercial recreational spaces.
Another major social factor that has created the need for childrens free-time
educational institutions is the family. Certain transformations in family life have
resulted in the reduction or loss of some of the familys traditional functions in
relation to childrens leisure. In addition to being an economic unit and the heart of
affective relationships, the traditional nuclear family was a leisure community, i.e.,
the framework in which a good deal of its members took part in free-time activities
together. School and the nuclear family became established as the two main
institutions for childrens custody and education. But while the school played
a minor role in the direct provision of child leisure activities, the same could not
be said of the family. For the very young and to a lesser extent the slightly older
child the most significant natural setting for their leisure was in the family
environment. Directly or indirectly, and for better or worse depending on the
case, the family was the most relevant authority to guide, enable, and give content
to childrens free time. Control over and responsibility for childrens leisure rested
traditionally within the family institution, which shaped both everyday leisure
activities and those weekly or annual routines (weekends and holidays).
This picture of family leisure has been changing in parallel with other alterations
taking place in that institution. Womens work outside the home, a significant
relaxation of relationships within the family, progressive disengagement of the
conjugal family (parents and children) in relation to other family members (grandparents, uncles, aunts), the quest for higher levels of personal autonomy for each
group member, or the diversity of todays family models (reconstructed families,
single-parent families) are factors that have blurred the image of the family as
a leisure community. It is true that the family is still important in this task, but
a series of educational institutions has appeared to take over the familys role.

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Summer camps, childrens clubs, extracurricular activities, and the like now
assume the functions related to childrens free time that were previously carried
out within the family structure.

28.3.3.2 Pedagogical Factors

The previous section offers examples of social factors at the root of the need for
free-time educational institutions, but to enable them to be developed and extended
there must also be a relevant pedagogical discourse that legitimizes and justifies
them. This is examined in the following section.
Broadening the Concept of Education
One of the most significant theoretical evolutions to have taken place in pedagogy,
especially since the second half of the twentieth century, was the broadening of the
concept of education and, consequently, extending the possible range of intentional
educational interventions. On the one hand, there has been a vertical extension:
From considering childhood and youth as almost the only stages at which we are
susceptible to education, we have moved to accepting, without reservation, that we
are receptive to teaching throughout our entire life. The concepts of lifelong
learning and continuing or recurrent education for adults, and even the elderly,
are now commonly accepted in the education sciences. Another expansion has been
horizontal. The concepts of nonformal and informal education (and others that are
parallel or similar such as open learning and extracurricular education) demonstrate
the idea that education extends far beyond the strict confines of the school (Trilla
1993b). If we accept these concepts, we cannot ignore the educational scope of the
design of play spaces and materials, free-time educational centers, and, in general,
the wide range of institutions and resources that will shape an entire field of leisure
education.
Recognition of the Role of Play in Development
Recognition that play is an essential activity for childhood development is another
factor that legitimizes the pedagogy of leisure. This is not the place to review the
many explanatory theories used to justify the pedagogy of leisure, but it is necessary
to highlight the fact that almost all psychological theories about childrens play
stress the importance it has in child development. Since the theory of K. Groos, who
explained that play is a preparatory exercise for adulthood and which he considered
a spontaneous mode of self-education, all subsequent authors on the subject
(W. Stern, S. Hall, E. Claparede, F. Buytendijk, K. Buhler, J. Piaget, and the
psychoanalytic theorists) have emphasized one aspect or another but they accept
the role of play in development (Elkonin 2010). Some, like Vygotsky, go even
further by considering play a basic factor of development and a conducting
activity that determines the childs development (Vygotski 2001, pp. 154-155).
Play is not the only free-time activity, but it is one of the most paradigmatic,
above all in early childhood. Thus, recognition of recreational activity as a factor in
childhood development necessarily had to strengthen the refinement of pedagogical
reflection on free time.

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Growing Appreciation of the Values Traditionally Marginalized by School

The school as an institution traditionally has favored the intellectual over other
learning dimensions of the individual. However, the pedagogical requirement of
a comprehensive education that omits none of the facets of the human being and
harmoniously strengthens each of them is now dated. The idea of integral education
is a long-standing pedagogical aspiration that school has rarely satisfied in practice.
This institution has focused on cognitive aspects, while in the curricula and practice
in general the presence of emotions, sociability, artistic expression, or even physical
education (other than the few exceptions that simply prove the rule) have traditionally occupied a secondary and subordinate role.
If the integral education discourse served to reassess a series of personality
aspects such as those mentioned above and the educational institution par excellence, i.e., the school, failed to assume them to a satisfactory extent, other areas or
educational institutions should have assumed them on a supplementary basis.
However, the school, or at least the traditional school, was reluctant to accept
a set of values that were being updated ideologically, such as spontaneity, autonomy, creativity, relationship with the environment, and so on. The organizational
models of the traditional school (rigid, fossilized, bureaucratic, and hierarchical)
and their methodologies (rote learning, passive, decontextualized) were, in fact, the
antitheses of the values that the most advanced pedagogy was demanding.
In short, the theoretical overview of pedagogy was growing with a set of new or
recovered goals and values that conventional educational institutions failed to
properly address. What was being asserted was that the cultivation of creativity,
sociability, self-expression, and autonomy would perhaps be more in keeping with
a kind of educational institution or medium that had free time as a sphere of action.
Thus, it is a fact that leisure educational institutions have championed the values
mentioned above. On occasion they have assumed them in the belief that they
should do so as a necessary complement (or supplement) to the school.
Formulation of the right to education in free time
Article 24 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United
Nations in 1948, already established the right to the leisure: Everyone has the right
to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic
holidays with pay. The definition of this right in the case of children, as established
in 1959 by the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child, explicitly linked it
to education. Principle 7 of the Declaration, devoted specifically to education, states the
following: The child shall have full opportunity for play and recreation, which should
be directed to the same purposes as education; society and the public authorities shall
endeavour to promote the enjoyment of this right. In the update of the document which
led to the Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted in 1989, also by the United
Nations, an entire article is dedicated to childrens leisure. Article 31 states that
(1) States Parties recognise the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in
play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate
freely in cultural life and the arts. (2) States Parties shall respect and promote the right
of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the

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provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and
leisure activity. Furthermore, many nations have incorporated explicit references to
the childrens right to leisure and education in their free time into their own legislation
(constitutions, and educational, social, and cultural laws) (Lazaro 2006).
Obviously, the legal recognition of a right does not mean that in reality the
necessary conditions exist for everyone to exercise it, let alone have equal opportunities to do so. Social and economic inequalities in the formal educational system
are certainly the same or probably even more so for free-time education. Nonetheless, it remains true that these legal formulations regarding education in free time
have contributed to the social endorsement of this educational area and to the public
bodies that are gradually assuming their responsibility in relation to it.

28.4

Specific Areas of the Pedagogy of Leisure

28.4.1 Institutions, Programs, Activities, and Resources

As we have seen, educational activities related to free time can take place in a very
wide range of institutions, programs, facilities, activities, and resources. In fact, all
the educational contexts and mediums that have a bearing on the use that individuals make of their free time should be considered areas of the pedagogy of leisure.
The simplest way to organize the existing diversity of these areas is to divide them
into two groups: specific and nonspecific.
Specific areas of the pedagogy of leisure would be all those institutions and
activities that are simultaneously specifically educational and specifically linked to
free time, i.e., institutions expressly created for the purpose of educating through
pursuits that are characteristic of leisure. This group includes toy libraries, educational activities for holidays, childrens free-time clubs, and certain extracurricular
activities. Nonspecific areas would be those that are not specifically educational and
are not specifically linked to free time, i.e., school, family, and leisure industries.
The school is a specifically educational institution but, except at specific times, does
not act through free-time activities; leisure industries obviously address free time but
are more accurately characterized by their economic and commercial components
than by the components potentially connected with education. As nonspecific
mediums have already been widely and expressly discussed in other chapters of
this book, we present the most significant specific institutions, activities, and
resources in the following sections (Calvo 1997; Puig and Trilla 1996; Trilla and
Garca 2002).

28.4.1.1 Children Clubs and Centers for Free-time Education

Children clubs and centers for free-time education refer to a wide range of institutions that have different names according to the traditions of each country but they
explicitly approach free time as an area for educational intervention and assume it
in an overall fashion. They do not specialize in just one kind of leisure activity such
as toy libraries or other institutions which we discuss below. Children centers are

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constituted as spaces for meeting and a range of activities, with the presence of
facilitators (professionals or volunteers) and where the users are usually children
from the same community. There are basically three types of children centers:
(1) those that operate on a weekly basis, (2) those that operate on a daily basis, and
(3) those that operate only at specific times of the year (mainly during school
holidays).
Despite the organizational and institutional diversity and the variety of pedagogical methodologies they may adopt, perhaps that which best characterizes this
type of educational institution is the collective leisure dimension that they facilitate
and encourage. Without eliminating the possibility that a child may choose some
individual leisure activity while at the club (reading or playing alone, for example),
the purpose of this institution is to be a place of encounters. If these childrens clubs
have any justification it is to provide the option of collective play, activities that
require company and reciprocity, cooperative leisure, building peer relationships,
and shared projects.

28.4.1.2 Holiday Educational Activities Performed Outside the Childs

Place of Residence: Summer and Overnight Camps,
Excursions, Volunteer Camps
As reflected in the section heading, in this section we bring together a variety of
childrens free-time educational activities that share the characteristic of taking
place outside their usual place of residence. Despite their limited duration (generally 10-15 days), they have relevant educational potential that can be summarized
by the following characteristics:
1. Intensity of the experience. These are short but remarkably intense experiences
as they encompass the totality of the childs life, 24 h a day. In terms of time,
they represent a total educational situation. This requires a more comprehensive
pedagogical approach than other, part-time leisure educational institutions.
2. Opportunity of educationally addressing the everyday. From that described
above, these activities include a variety of everyday life situations (meals,
sleeping, down time) which are omitted from possible pedagogical interventions
in other educational institutions except in the family or at boarding school. The
treatment of everyday events as an area of meeting primary needs is one of their
most important educational dimensions.
3. Temporary separation from the family environment. For the child, these activities mean experiencing temporary separation from the physical, emotional,
relational, and regulatory bastion of the family environment. For younger children, this may be an important moment in the necessary and progressive process
of reducing family dependency. The subject experiences a different model of
time management, relationships, and so on that provides a more objective
perspective of their own customary family model.
4. Contact with a different environment. For the city child, a stay at a summer camp
offers the possibility to know the rural world first hand and to have direct contact
with nature. Since these activities are not limited to city children, they always
represent a change from the childs own environment, with a broadening of his

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or her horizons, with all that it may mean (e.g., ways of life, customs,
landscapes).
Other formats also exist in this group of educational activities, e.g., thematic
summer camps where all the activities revolve around a certain area of interest (e.g.,
sport, music, ecology); volunteer camps where the holiday dimension makes
room for carrying out some form of service, whether social, agricultural, or
archaeological in nature; or treks (walking, cycling), which would be something
akin to travelling camps.

28.4.1.3 Playgrounds and Recreational Open Spaces

Though we must continue to insist that urban policies, where possible, adopt as one
of their objectives the recovery of streets and public squares as favorable places for
spontaneous play, this does not deny the fact that it may often be necessary to adapt
open spaces to ensure that children have the opportunity to play outdoors. From
a pedagogical perspective there are two fundamental criteria to consider when
designing play spaces: they must be based on the real requirements of spontaneous
play and they must stimulate and enrich such recreation.
In regard to the first criterion, it must be said that any intervention to set up play
spaces and their equipment should be based on knowledge of the reality of
childrens play. Direct observation of spontaneous games is a necessary source of
information in designing a truly functional park. The needs of different age groups
must be taken into account when determining the size of the space and its elements.
Younger children must be able to play with earth, sand, and water, and depending
on the location of the park, they should do so in a more or less protected space. It
would be appropriate to have conventional play elements at their disposal (e.g.,
slides and swings) as well as multipurpose structures that can be turned into a house,
hideout, or shop counter. Older children will require more open spaces where team
sports can be played, an element that entails a certain amount of controlled risk.
Nonetheless, just as we mentioned above that it would not be appropriate to isolate
leisure spaces too much, it would also be unadvisable to separate play areas
according to different age groups. Interactions between children of different ages
are always enriching. Younger children try to imitate and emulate older childrens
play through observation; older children learn to respect the play of the young.
The design of the park must awaken new and richer play possibilities. This can
be achieved by shaping the land (e.g., level changes, slopes, vegetation, hideouts,
ponds, water channels, places for skating and biking, roundabouts and porches) and
the incorporation of certain elements such as structures, trampolines, tunnels, walls,
and painted signs on the floor. In general, spaces and components that allow for
multiple uses are preferable to those that are for special use. One of the virtues of
spontaneous play is the adaptation and symbolic and/or physical re-creation that the
child does with places and materials.
Parks or adventure playgrounds also deserve special mention. These are spaces
whose main characteristic is their intentional lack of specific order or explicit
structures. They are expressly designed desert islands in an urban environment. In
this kind of park, children enjoy absolute freedom in their use of the space and

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usually have rudimentary materials at their disposal with which to build cabins,
hiding places, and so on. They are a way of facilitating the components of
experiment, adventure, secret, and apparent disorder that the group games which
children play often possess.

28.4.1.4 Play Centers and Toy Libraries

The playgrounds we have just discussed satisfy a part of the childs need to
enjoy adequate spaces for recreational activity. However, there are games
that require another type of equipment and special facilitators such as toys. Play
centers were created to provide this space and to expand the usability of these
facilitators.
The first toy library seems to have been opened in Los Angeles in 1934. In 1960,
UNESCO popularized the idea and since then they have spread worldwide.
In addition to their primary function (i.e., to provide an adequate public space
with good toys for childrens recreational activity), toy libraries usually serve other
purposes related to play and education: guiding parents on the purchase and use of
toys, the creation of new play materials, encouragement of activities and collaboration with other neighborhood institutions, and testing and assessing industrial
toys. Of course, toy libraries also address the tasks directly derived from their
primary functions, such as the selection of toys based on quality, hygiene, and
educational criteria; the cataloguing, repair, and maintenance of toys; and guidance
and help provided by facilitators in the use of toys.
As with outdoor playgrounds, an important aspect of toy libraries in relation to
their function as a social service is their location. The characteristics inherent in
their use make them a type of facility that must be easily and readily accessible,
which means their distribution should be decentralized. Rather than a few
macrocenters that entail a long journey to get there, it would be more beneficial
to establish a good network of small and medium-sized toy libraries that reaches
numerous neighborhoods and villages.
28.4.1.5 The Scout Movement
Founded in 1907 by the British military officer R. Baden Powell, scouting has been
one of the most popular child and youth movements in the world. Originally it
accepted only teenagers, but in 1914 admission was extended to include younger
children, and girls had their own scouting group in 1912. Leaving aside the (in
some cases) significant ideological and religious differences and nuances
that numerous national and international scouting associations have incorporated
into the movement, there is remarkable unity in the underlying principles and basic
methodologies of the scouting associations. In fact, scouting constitutes a complete
civic education program that has been enjoyed by thousands of young
people over generations. Though scouting is still a significantly active movement,
crises have been arising for some time over some of its more formal aspects such as
uniforms and rituals. On a deeper level, issues have also arisen because of certain
resistance to the much-needed methodological renewal that the movements
material and ideological transformation requires. Despite this, as far as our

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subject is concerned, it must be said that the emergence and development of

many other free-time educational initiatives has been used the techniques, experiences, and people from scouting. Scout movements have covered and still cover an
important space in the framework of free-time educational interventions.
Some of the traits that mark other areas of the pedagogy of leisure (e.g., summer
camps, free-time clubs) are perfectly applicable to scouting. There is, however, one
fundamental difference: diverse methodologies, doctrines, and pedagogical
models usually emerge in other expressions of the pedagogy of leisure; in contrast,
scouting is in itself an entire educational methodology. Moreover, it is
a methodology based on and fueled by an explicit and well-defined philosophy
of life and education.

28.4.1.6 Monothematic Activities, Facilities, and Leisure Resources

Grouped under this heading are all the associative entities created to encourage,
usually altruistically, some particular artistic, cultural, or sports specialty during
free time. Members or practitioners of these kinds of activities partake of them
more for their content than for some utilitarian purpose. This does not prevent high
standards and demands being achieved on many occasions. In any case, the
enjoyment and satisfaction, which are the essence of any leisure activity, are
never lost. Examples are childrens choirs, folk groups, theatre groups, amateur
sports teams, and excursion groups. This category also encompasses a realm of
extracurricular activities that take the form of courses or workshops on a wide range
of subjects, including visual arts, dance, music, new technologies, yoga, and
languages. We should also include such institutions and facilities as libraries,
museums, zoos, and other cultural installations that usually offer specific programs
aimed at filling childrens free time through their educational sections or
departments.

28.4.2 Shared Structural and Functional Characteristics

Though educational institutions, mediums, activities, and resources for free time
are quite broad and diverse, they have some shared characteristics which we
examine in this section.
A heuristic resource to identify the characteristics of a certain educational area
consists of identifying their differences from another area. Since the school has
been and still is the educational institution of reference, it is not surprising that it has
often been used to characterize, by contrast, that which is typical of free-time
educational institutions. Thus J. Franch (1985, p. 22), warning of the danger of
oversimplification inherent in this type of formula, proposed the comparative table
in Fig. 28.5.
Taking into account the information of the chart above (Fig. 28.5) we will
discuss the general characteristics that are more significant in free-time educational
institutions, beginning with the most structural or organizational elements and
continuing to the more functional or methodological aspects.

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SCHOOL

887

FREE-TIME INSTITUTION

Its function is to ensure a common cultural base

for all.

It allows for diversification in the ways of

participating in culture.

In this sense, it acts as a levelling mechanism.

In this sense, it acts as a diversification mechanism.

The essential content of the schools message is

the transmission of codes and concepts and
abstraction from those elements.

The essential content of the free-time institution

focuses on completion and deepening of the
experience, and on the elucidation of specific
meaning.

The interpersonal relationship is normally, at most,

tolerated.

The interpersonal relationship is promoted as an

essential condition.

The planning of activity projects does not usually

involve children.

Activity projects are usually planned by children.

The code used is language and logic.

There is no single code. On the contrary, the

tendency is to use a variety of different
instruments for expression and creation.

The experience that takes place is selective.

The experience that takes place is overall.

It has its own boundaries of time and space.

It also has its own time and space boundaries, but

they are different, and this difference carries
significant consequences.

Fig. 28.5 Differences between the school institution and free-time educational institutions
(Franch 1985)

28.5

Structural Elements

28.5.1 Reduction of External Requirements

Compared with the school, free-time institutions have a substantially lower number
of external determining factors and expectations. Their degree of relative autonomy
therefore is higher. This reduction in external requirements is seen in such aspects as
1. Lack of compulsory and standardized study plans, curricula, and programs.
Thus, each institution, movement, program, or pedagogical intervention is able
to develop its own goals and methods with quite a high level of autonomy.
2. Fewer legal and bureaucratic conditioners. Since free-time educational institutions are a relatively new area, a body of law and bureaucracy that excessively
restricts their institutional operation has yet to be developed.
3. Reduced social and family expectations. As the school is still the main educational
institution in our society, together with the family, a high and ambitious number of
social expectations fall on its shoulders, justified or not. Besides fulfilling its most
primary function (the transmission of a basic cultural background), school is also
supposed to meet varied expectations such as disciplinary functions, act as

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a platform for social mobility, and remedial actions in addition to any new specific
needs that may appear on the educational landscape (e.g., sex education, health
education, environmental education). In contrast and perhaps due to their limited
and as yet not entirely socially legitimized presence, free-time institutions face
lower expectations from society and specifically from families. Apart from reasonable health and safety requirements in their role as guardian and ensuring that the
children find a pleasant environment that meets certain minimums of education,
parents do not usually demand much more of free-time institutions. This leads
to certain negative components (depreciation of their value and educational possibilities, for example), but also entails positive aspects such as greater autonomy and
flexibility to undertake projects more in line with their conception.

28.5.2 Less Institutional Inertia

Since they do not have long and established institutional and operational traditions,
free-time educational centers are able to develop without the burden of inertia that
is associated with the institution of the school. They are more easily receptive to
new situations, allow less sclerotic action, are best suited to the context in which
they operate, and are generally more open to methodological innovations. In return,
they have high levels of instability and of lack of continuity.

28.5.3 Diversity of Institutional Forms

The school is a remarkably uniform and monolithic institution. Except for some
substantial differences (i.e., public or private, traditional or progressive), all schools
are quite similar. The landscape of free-time institutions is very different. Their
diversity lies as much in management forms, funding, and institutional dependence
as in objectives, projects, and pedagogical methods.

28.6

Methodological and Functional Aspects

28.6.1 Emphasis on Relations and Groups

Although the school constitutes a collective situation, it has traditionally been
characterized as leaving the development and educational treatment of sociability
in the background. In contrast, leisure institutions have always tended to emphasize
interpersonal relationships. Providing suitable spaces, times, and environments for
collective play, the creation of groups and the exchange of initiatives are tasks
usually considered a priority in the pedagogy of leisure. Likewise, the conflicts that
arise from living together in a community constitute educational opportunities of
the greatest pedagogical interest. The relational aspects are highlighted when we
find that a good number of the pedagogical debates addressed in free-time

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educational institutions refer to such issues as group size and formation (natural or
imposed groups, homogeneous or heterogeneous in terms of age ) and the level of
childrens participation in deciding and managing the agenda.

28.6.2 The Specific Learning Contents as a Medium

Free-time institutions have prioritized the (lets say) educational (behavioral and
attitudinal aspects) over the instructive (contents and intellectual skills). With respect
to the instructive, greater emphasis has been placed on the concrete than on the abstract
and the conceptual. As free-time institutions are not expected to cover curricular
requirements, the contents and specific skills to be learned are not seen as the main
objective but usually as necessary elements in the performance of activities or projects
with a wider scope. In this way, specific learning, which undoubtedly also takes place
in such situations, is carried out in a much more contextualized and active way.
Learning by doing, the slogan of pedagogical activism that progressive pedagogues
have tried so hard to introduce into the school, is the natural consequence of the very
identity of free-time institutions. In these institutions the learning content always
depends on the activity to be performed, i.e., the order of factors is the inverse of
that of the school. In schools, learning contents are always predetermined by the
programs, from which the appropriate activities are designed to achieve the most
effective learning. In contrast, in free-time institutions it is the activity itself that
determines which skills and what knowledge must be acquired for its proper performance. The process of acquiring such contents usually takes place through practice.
This is true even for those free-time educational activities in which greater emphasis is
placed on the need to acquire and perfect certain skills such as choir singing, dance,
and competitive sports. Note that in these cases the very names of the learning
processes rehearse, exercise, and train directly denote the intrinsic link between
the act of learning and the practice of what the individuals are learning.

28.6.3 Possibility of an Educational Approach to the Everyday and

of Gestation of the Extraordinary
Free-time situations are often opportunities that allow for educational moments in
everyday life. The formal nature of school impedes it from acting on these apparently simple or routine instances in individual and collective life (sleeping, dressing, meals, cleaning tasks, shopping, idle moments, informal interactions). In
certain free-time educational activities, the everyday sector of life is not marginal,
but something on whose functioning rests a good deal of the success and educational projection of those activities.
Naturally, revaluing the everyday does not exclude enhancing the extraordinary
and leisure situations are equally appropriate for this purpose. It is also the task of
the pedagogy of leisure to instill in children the capacity of collectively creating
alternatives to the monotonous and routine passage of time. A predisposition to the
occasional exploit which is out-of-the-ordinary and an inclination toward

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adventure, imaginative conduct, or creative action are values that can be cultivated
in free-time with fewer restrictions than in other educational situations. After all,
the extraordinary is memorable, and the memorable, if experienced positively,
makes the learning achievement far more enduring.

28.6.4 Hosting and Facilitating the Development of Ones Own

Projects
The above-mentioned external impositions mean that the activity of school children
is generally heteronymous; it is determined on the basis of previously and externally established programs and contents. In some cases these activities have been
preceded by some motivational process that to a certain extent can make them
attractive and interesting. Certain school pedagogies have attempted to connect
learning processes with the interests that children are able to express in an open and
receptive school environment. Such is the case of active pedagogies, the project
methods, and Freinets work plans. In free-time educational institutions, however,
embracing childrens interests, wishes, or initiatives must necessarily become one
of their methodological constants. This is not simply a question of embracing or
giving free rein to the expression of such interests but of facilitating the design and
preparation of the resulting activities and projects. This is one of the important
aspects of adult educational intervention through leisure institutions: to provide
a suitable framework for the performance of simple free-time activities that can be
carried out autonomously by children and to enable the realization of more complex
projects arising from the very dynamism of the groups (Franch and Martinell 1994).

28.6.5 Immediate Relationship with the Environment

Free-time educational institutions usually have been characterized as being more
deeply rooted in the immediate environment than the school. Traditionally, the
latter has had a kind of centralizing isolationist inclination, closing in on itself,
a tendency to distance itself from its surroundings (Trilla 2004). In contrast,
free-time educational movements from the outset have followed a contrary
direction (in this sense, scouting may be very paradigmatic). Knowledge of
the environment (natural, social, urban, cultural) and active participation in it
are usually predominant goals in the educational practice of these institutions
(Casas et al. 2008; Hart 1997; Trilla and Novella 2001).

28.7

Epilogue

Throughout this chapter we have advocated the need to intervene educationally in

childrens free time. Now, to conclude, some caveats are necessary to avoid
misinterpretation.

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We have stated that one of the main purposes of free-time educational intervention is to enrich leisure experiences. However, scrupulous respect of one condition
in this intervention is required: the leisure activity in which there is educational
intervention must continue to be truly experienced as leisure. In other words, the
educational intervention must respect the three essential aspects we attributed to
leisure: freedom, autotelism, and pleasure.

28.7.1 Leisure and the Joyful Use of Useless Knowledge

In the book In Praise of Idleness, Bertrand Russell promoted what he provocatively
called useless knowledge. In an accelerated historical review, the English
philosopher noticed certain moments in which knowledge was given a value
that was not solely utilitarian. He paused, of course, on the Renaissance when,
in his own words, there was a revolt against the utilitarian conception of
knowledge . . . Learning, in the Renaissance, was part of the joie de vivre, just as
much as drinking or love-making. . . . The main motive of the Renaissance
was mental delight. . . (Russell 1960, p. 17). Later, Russell warned how in
todays time (as true in his day as in ours) Knowledge, everywhere, is coming
to be regarded not as a good in itself, or as a means of creating a broad
and humane outlook on life in general, but as merely an ingredient in technical
skill (Russell 1960, pp 19-20). Education for leisure should therefore defend
this disinterested knowledge, this autotelic value of culture as a source of
delight which, after all, was the genuine meaning of leisure in Greek culture
(Morgan 2006).

28.7.2 Pleasure, Risk, and Self-control

In their now classic work on Sport and Leisure in the Civilizing Process, Elias and
Dunning (1986) discovered a close relationship between leisure, risk, and pleasure.
They explained how recreational leisure activities
. . .constitute the acceptance of some risk. They tend to defy the strict regulation of the
routinized life of people. . . . They allow people to relax or to ridicule the rules that govern
their non-leisure life. . . . They imply that one plays with the rules the way one plays with
fire. Sometimes they go too far. . . . In recreational occupations, apparently antagonistic
feelings such as fear and pleasure not only oppose each other (as it logically seems), but
are inseparable parts of a process of recreational enjoyment. . . . In this sense, no satisfaction
can be obtained from recreational pursuits without small doses of fear alternating with
pleasant expectations, brief shocks of anguish alternating with other feelings of pleasure.
. . . This is the reason why different types of excitement play a central role in recreational
activities. And only in this way is it possible to understand the de-routinizing function of
leisure. Routines entail a high degree of security. Unless we expose ourselves to a little
insecurity, to having something more or less at stake, the routines we have embodied in us will
never loosen, we will never be able to rid ourselves of them, even temporarily, and the function
of recreational activities will be lost (Norbert and Dunning 1992, pp. 127, 134135).

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So according to Elias and Dunning, the deroutinization that forms part of the
nature of many leisure activities entails the social and personal assumption of
a certain level of risk. This risk can overflow easily; an excessive risk can appear
that exceeds both social and individual minimum security thresholds. It is then that
certain systems of regulation are needed. Basically, two types of systems exist to
channel or restrain the excessive risk that leisure can bring. The first type would be
legal and social, e.g., restrictions on alcohol or drug consumption, police security
mechanisms. The other type of risk control system is what interests us here because
it is the one that refers directly to education. Learning risk control involves selfknowledge (knowing our own limitations, possibilities, and expectations), will
power (to guide action in accordance with our intention and conscience), responsibility (knowing and assuming the consequences of our actions), and the capability
of self-control. Leisure implies risk and therefore requires self-control, a faculty
only education can help develop.

28.7.3 Freedom to Choose or Freedom to Project and Build

Education should also contribute to developing a deeper sense of freedom. We
often understand freedom in leisure as the freedom to choose from predetermined
options: one show or another, this TV program or that, any of the many video games
available on the market, a brand of clothes, one distraction or the other. This is the
freedom to choose from what the market has to offer the freedom to choose
products which undoubtedly constitutes a degree of freedom, but it is still a poor
freedom and educationally too simple. The freedom that a pedagogy of leisure
should enhance is not only that of choosing products, but also of choosing paths and
processes i.e., the freedom to conceive and conduct our own projects; the freedom
to build leisure and not only to consume it.

28.7.4 Ensuring the Availability of Noninstitutionalized or

Controlled Free Time
To educate for leisure and in leisure means to facilitate learning about how to use
free time. Learning that concept curiously seems to be achieved by dispossessing
the subjects of their own time. Here lies the kind of hyperinstitutionalization of free
time that children are often exposed to: a time almost entirely occupied by extracurricular activities, facilitators, coaches, babysitters, private teachers, classes and
courses of any kind, and other forms of custody. It is as if we wanted to prepare for
the good use of free time by turning it into something alien, by distancing it.
Educating for leisure requires maintaining or, given the case, restoring sufficient
doses of this time that is not allocated in timetables or restricted by institutions: the
time that some have described in these words: The clock Ernst Junger said does
not form part of the forest. Neither does it form part of the world of lovers, games or
music. The hours the spirit spends in leisure or devoted to a creative work, these

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hours the clock does not measure. . . . Deep down it is a matter of a demand for
freedom in areas we have not yet tamed. Our enjoyable and pleasant occupations
are precisely those in which we pay no attention to measured time. . . . Children play
until they are called or get tired. They play until the sun goes down. . .. Recreation
is greater the less we watch the clock (Junger 1998, pp. 13, 14, 26, 28). A childs
quality of life does not consist of trying to fill free time with institutionalized
recreational activities. It is necessary to ensure the presence of a time for truly
free and autonomously generated activities as well as the existence of appropriate
contexts for horizontal socialization without the direct guidance of adults. It would
be a matter of preserving (or perhaps recovering) those moments in which our
children can also receive, like the boy from Stevensons tale mentioned at the
beginning of the chapter, their own informal lessons of peace and contentment.

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