| Public engagement has recently received increased attention from policymakers and academics because of its benefits to society. Multiple studies identified sources that have the potential to generate, revive and augment public engagement. These include family, church, school, work place, political establishments, third places, and more recently leisure participation. The main problem of this study was to identify which forms of leisure participation were most relevant to the generation of public engagement. The forms of leisure included participation in sport activities, cultural and expressive activities, home and garden-based hobby activities, outdoor activities, social activities, visitation to leisure and recreation sites, and media participation. As leisure does not exist in a vacuum, demographic characteristics of respondents and community characteristics were also included in the analysis.;A mail survey was randomly administered to people residing in the province of Friesland located in the Northern part of the Netherlands. The results were based on a sample of 409 respondents, representing a 29% response rate. The analysis focused on finding associations between selected leisure participation characteristics, community characteristics and demographic characteristics, and the dimensions of public engagement. Different leisure forms and types of activities were associated with different dimensions of public engagement. Furthermore, a discriminant analysis was performed to distinguish between publicly engaged and non-engaged respondents.;The discriminant model indicated that the most useful predictors for distinguishing between the politically engaged and non-engaged were age, and range of media participation. The most useful predictors for distinguishing between the civically engaged and non-engaged were marital status, and range of visitations to recreation and leisure sites. The overall results suggest that leisure participation does not necessarily influence public engagement.;The complexity of associations between forms of leisure and dimensions of public engagement demands the attention of academic and policymakers. There is a need to focus efforts on facilitating and promoting the recreation and leisure forms that appeared to be more associated with public engagement. There is also a need to raise (more) awareness about the role that leisure can have on public engagement, to citizens, policymakers, and leisure professionals. Leisure and recreation providers can take a more progressive role in contributing to public policy and community building. Furthermore, for further understanding of the leisure participation and public engagement phenomenon, leisure scholars need to shift discourse from whether there is a relationship between the two concepts to where do actual relationships exist. For this, more focused longitudinal leisure behavior studies are necessary. Furthermore, consideration should also be on ways of influencing public engagement through leisure participation. |
