Is leisure always pleasure? (2006)

The aim of this research is to give an extensive analysis of the target group (people with a mild mental handicap) concerning their needs, wishes and motivations with regard to leisure participation. Further, it is the aim to depict the internal and external constraints that might prevent the target group from taking part in leisure activities in general as well as activities specifically organised for handicapped people.The leisure interests and needs of the sample are highly diversified, meaning that people have all kinds of leisure interests and needs, may it be for sports, educational acitivities, or social meetings. However, some leisure needs are mentioned more frequently by respondents than others. First, nearly alle respondents mention the need to sociolize. The respondents have a strong need to meet people in and around their closer social network. Secondly, the respondents often regard their leisure time as a time of eduction. Subjects they are mostly interested in are computer related such as using the PC and the Internet. Another aspect that comes forward is the interest in more ‘fun’ activities. Even though respondents recognize the necessity to use leisure time for educational purposed, they also mention that they miss out on more fun activities. This refers generally to day excursions, e.g. to the Efteling or different cities. When looking at the demographic aspects of the sample, it can be observed that younger people show more diversified leisure behavior than older people. Older people are less self-assure of their abilities and often believe they cannot do as much as they did when being younger, their intrapersonal barriers such as low self-confidence or high anxiety are much higeher in comparison to the younger respondents. As a result the older people of the sample often have more rigid leisure behaviours and interests. With regard to gender differences, it has been mentioned that, in general, both men and women show an interest in sports. However, men show much stronger interests in group or team sports, such as soccer. Women, on the contrary, are more interested in sports such as swimming or walking, which they either can do alone or with family/friends and which they are less obliged to participate in on a regular basis.