Race and leisure constraints

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Abstract
Many recent models of leisure constraints make no mention or measurement of race at any level of analysis despite its continuing importance in U.S. society. This study investigated the relationship between race and two basic measures of leisure constraint: appeal and comfort. A stratified random sample of 136 African American and 108 European American middle‐class households from a southern coastal city rated the appeal and comfort of participation in 20 different leisure activities on a Likert‐type scale. Significant differences (p < .05) between African Americans and European Americans were found in 12 activities (60%) rated on appeal and 12 activities (60%) rated on comfort, In addition, activities were ranked using mean appeal and comfort scores for African and European Americans, which showed fairly strong associations between these rankings. Although a measure of overall similarity between middle‐class African American and European American leisure ratings was found, important constraint differences continued to exist for a large number of individual activities. It appears race is an important leisure constraint for numerous leisure activities, suggesting the need for further refinement of leisure constraint models.