Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Cross National
Cross National
Cross National
Gender Differences in
Adolescents’ Preferences
for Free-Time Activities
Judith L. Gibbons
Maria Lynn
Saint Louis University
Deborah A. Stiles
Webster University
Downloaded from ccr.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on May 24, 2015
56
Downloaded from ccr.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on May 24, 2015
57
chose soccer and table tennis and more females chose basketball
and handball (Amuchie, 1982). Adolescent boys in Finland and
Australia were more likely than girls to list leisure activities among
their future hopes and fears (Nurmi, Poole, & Kalakoski, 1994).
When adolescents engage in sports, boys may be more likely
than girls to participate in team sports. More than half of the boys
in a diverse U.S. sample listed a team sport as a hobby compared
to 29% of the girls. When the girls did list sports, they tended to
list individual sports (such as swimming or gymnastics) (AAUW,
1990). This finding was replicated in a longitudinal study of Scot-
tish adolescents in which boys more often preferred team sports
and girls preferred swimming (Smith, 1987). In a similar vein,
young adolescent girls from the northeastern United States pre-
ferred leisure activities that provided one-on-one contact, whereas
boys more often preferred to associate with neighborhood groups
(McMeeking & Purkayastha, 1995).
Girls may, in fact, have less free time than boys, as shown by
studies in the United States (Mauldin & Meeks, 1990; Shaw,
Kleiber, & Caldwell, 1995) and among South Asian immigrants in
the United Kingdom (Carrington et al., 1987), and compared to
boys may value a &dquo;life of leisure&dquo; less, as demonstrated in the
10-nation study by Offer and his colleagues (Offer, Ostrov, Howard,
& Atkinson, 1988) and by Chamberlain in Ireland (Chamberlain, 1983).
The free time that girls do have seems to be spent in ways other
than team sports. Studies from the United States, Israel, and
Australia have revealed that girls are more likely than boys to
spend their free time reading (Eccles & Harold, 1991; Florian &
Har-Even, 1984) or involved in &dquo;vocational&dquo; interests such as
visiting a library or museum, reading, or gardening (Garton &
Pratt, 1991).
The ways that adolescents use their free time is important
because it is in their leisure activities that adolescents may best
exercise their own preferences or choices (Kirshnit et al., 1989;
Larson, 1994; Silbereisen, Noack, & Schonpflug, 1994). In addi-
tion, adolescents’ leisure-time activities may be carried into the
future in terms of their leisure activities (Kelly, 1974) or particular
occupational choices (Hong, Milgram, & Whiston, 1993) as adults
(but see also Chick & Barnett, 1995; and Poole & Cooney, 1986 for
critiques and counter arguments). In a review that emphasized
longitudinal studies rather than correlational approaches, Larson
Downloaded from ccr.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on May 24, 2015
58
METHOD
PARTICIPANTS
Downloaded from ccr.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on May 24, 2015
59
INSTRUMENT
PROCEDURE
CATEGORIZING
RESULTS
Downloaded from ccr.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on May 24, 2015
60
896) = 6.98, p < .O 1. There was also a significant effect for sample,
F(3, 896) = 19.49, p < .001, and a significant interaction between
gender and sample, F(3, 896) 2.83, p < .05. Posthocs demon-
=
Downloaded from ccr.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on May 24, 2015
:S~
c
c18-
,...
j)
.Q
rA
a)
tCo «~
a,) 00
-Po
~ v
fi§
CH~
M s
10
~’S
P!Aaj0 *.
po
u
rA
’o g
§~
po
~. -4a z
,414
H.S~
I
v
rA pa
E-4 .,&dquo;
K .m
>’O
(£
~w
~
g
6~
flg
o fl
;T4 4.,
P-4
4)a)
P4
0
61
Downloaded from ccr.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on May 24, 2015
vi
Q
0
-J3
c0
’~ .
10Q) T3 m .
’&dquo;2’;
Uu
01’&dquo;1
0
0
0
cad
’s00 s~
u
::s ::s
s’g
C%3
<D Q)
<-. no
00 00
td
0-
~~.....00
£<~!i1
l$
3J
@m
5’tJ
°<
~b.O
’c-S~~ S
~.....
0)Q)cj
0-
00
.m
~~
E-4v
o
fl~]
62
Downloaded from ccr.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on May 24, 2015
63
activities (26.2%) than did girls (19%), X’ = 5.76, p < .05, and
significantly more group activities (41.9%) than did girls (29.3%),
x2 = 13.67, p < .001.
DISCUSSION
Downloaded from ccr.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on May 24, 2015
64
Downloaded from ccr.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on May 24, 2015
65
Downloaded from ccr.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on May 24, 2015
66
References
Downloaded from ccr.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on May 24, 2015
67
Colley, A., Eglinton, E., & Elliott, E. (1992). Sport participation in middle
childhood: Association with styles of play and parental participation.
International Journal of Sport Psychology, 23, 193-206.
Department of Education and Science. (1983). Young people in the 80s: A
survey. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.
Eccles, J. S., & Harold, R. D. (1991). Gender differences in sport involve-
ment : Applying the Eccles’ expectancy-value model. Journal of Applied
Sport Psychology, 3 , 7-35.
Engström, L-M. (1974). Physical activities during leisure time: A survey
of teenage sport activities in Sweden. International Review of Sport
Sociology, 9, 83-102.
Fiske, A. P. (1993). Social errors in four cultures: Evidence about universal
forms of social relations. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 24,
463-494.
Fitzgerald, M., Joseph, A. P., Hayes, M., & O’Regan, M. (1995). Leisure
activities of adolescent schoolchildren. Journal of Adolescence, 18,
349-358.
Florian, V, & Har-Even, D. (1984). Cultural patterns in the choice of
leisure time activity frameworks: A study of Jewish and Arab youth in
Israel. Journal of Leisure Research, 16, 330-337.
Frydenberg, E., & Lewis, R. (1993). Boys play sport and girls turn to
others: Age, gender, and ethnicity as determinants of coping. Special
Issue: Stress and coping in adolescence. Journal of Adolescence, 16,
253-266.
Garton, A. F., & Pratt, C. (1991). Leisure of adolescent school students:
Predictors of participation and interest. Journal of Adolescence, 14,
305-321.
Hines, S., & Groves, D. L. (1989). Sports competition and its influence on
self-esteem development. Adolescence, 24, 861- 869.
Hong, E., Milgram, R. M., & Whiston, S. C. (1993). Leisure activities in
adolescents as a predictor of occupational choice in young adults: A
longitudinal study. Journal of Career Development, 19, 221-229.
Hultsman, W. Z. (1993). Is constrained leisure an internally homogeneous
concept? An extension. Journal of Leisure Research, 25 , 319-335.
Kagitçibaşi, Ç. (1996). Family and human development across cultures: A
view from the other side. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Kelly, J. R. (1974) Socialization toward leisure: A developmental approach.
Journal of Leisure Research, 6, 181-193.
Kirshnit, C. E., Ham, M., & Richards, M. H. (1989). The sporting life:
Athletic activities during early adolescence: Special Issue: The chang-
ing life space of early adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence,
, 601-615.
18
Larson, R. (1994). Youth organizations, hobbies, and sports as develop-
mental contexts. In R. K. Silbereisen & E. Todt (Eds.), Adolescence in
context: The interplay of family, school, peers, and work in adjustment
(pp. 46-65). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Lever, J. (1978). Sex differences in the complexity of children’s play and
games. American Sociological Review, 43 , 471-483.
Downloaded from ccr.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on May 24, 2015
68
Downloaded from ccr.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on May 24, 2015
69
Downloaded from ccr.sagepub.com at NANYANG TECH UNIV LIBRARY on May 24, 2015