Leisure Education Contemporary Concepts and Activities

Leisure education (LE) plays a vital role in helping our participants realize the importance of recreation in their lives. It is not merely about teaching a number of recreation and leisure activities to participants. Leisure education is a process in which the participant learns how positive recreation experiences and interactions can transform their lives. Leisure education instruction helps participants learn skills essential to these transformational successes.  

The prior LE manuals by Norma Stumbo and colleagues have long served as valued resources for education and practice within therapeutic recreation. This rejuvenated version of the manuals aims to extend this tradition, while bringing modern concepts, techniques, and activities to the forefront. The book is organized into two sections. The first section includes four conceptual chapters. Collectively, these chapters address many core questions involved in developing a comprehensive LE program. The second section includes five activity chapters, based on the Stumbo and Peterson (2021) Leisure Education model, plus a beginning chapter on connection activities. The four major components of the LE Model are leisure awareness, social interaction skills, leisure resources, and leisure activity skills.  This manual deviates from these four areas in the LE Model in two ways.  First, like prior LE manuals, leisure activity skills have not been included. These types of skills are vitally important but often are found in other mass market books. Second, decision-making skills—designated under the leisure awareness category in the original LE Model—has been emphasized and given its own activity chapter. Decision-making skills are important to participants' future success and vital to the practitioner's tool kit. In all, these nine chapters represent the most important areas of LE knowledge and skills—for both the participant and the professional.

“Leisure Education: Contemporary Concepts and Activities will be a welcome addition to the professional libraries of TR students and practitioners alike. It will also serve as a template and catalyst for the readers’ ongoing development of goal-directed activities that enhance the health and well-being of clients.”

Dr. Cynthia P. Carruthers
Professor Emerita, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Dr. Colleen D. Hood
Professor Emerita, Brock University