A Study On The Leisure Of Rural Residents In The Context Of Social Change

Social change can help promote new developments in leisure of rural residents,leading to changes in their leisure lifestyles. Currently, the limited amount ofresearch on leisure in rural areas in China employs mostly quantitative methods.In this paper, we use qualitative methods such as participant observation and in-depth interview to study the leisure of rural residents, so as better to reveal thechanges in their leisure and the mechanisms involved.This paper first describes the economic development, urbanization, thepopularization of domestic electric appliances and modern media andcommunication devices, as well as the spread of Christianity, aspects of socialchange that are closely associated with changes in the leisure life of residents in theTieshan Village community, and then investigate the mechanisms by which thesechanges affect leisure in this community. Secondly, this paper describes thedifferent patterns of leisure life of Tieshan residents of different vocations, differentfamily structures, different genders, and different age groups, and then analyze thecauses leading to their diverse leisure patterns. Finally, this paper explores themain constraints for leisure participation of rural residents in China in an age ofsocial transformation, including intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structuralconstraints, with a comparison with findings by Western scholars in this area inorder to show the differences in economic conditions and historico-culturalbackgrounds between Chinese and Western societies and the effects of thesedifferences on leisure constraints. The comparison shows that the leisureconstraints, in order of importance, are: structural constraints--intrapersonalconstraints--interpersonal constraints for rural residents in China, in contrast to theorder suggested by Western scholars for their developed urban societies, namely,intrapersonal constraints--interpersonal constraints--structural constraints, implyingthat the strategy for overcoming these constraints should also be different in thecontext of China’s rural society from what is suitable for the Western society.