2016 Volume 61 Issue 1 Pages 11-27
Participation in outdoor recreation has declined in Japan, especially among adolescents. For example, in 2013 no outdoor recreation activities were ranked in the top 20 most frequently participated sports by Japanese adolescents. Conversely, in Canada where sport promotion policies are well established, participation in outdoor recreation increased slightly between 1992 and 2005. To better understand an individual's level of leisure participation, his or her motivations and constraints should be jointly examined. Having said this, however, to date the concept of constraints has been overlooked in Japanese leisure studies and sport sociology. Therefore, the purposes of this study were to examine: (a) cultural similarities and differences in motivations for and constraints to outdoor recreation participation between Japanese and Euro-Canadian adolescents; and (b) how motivations and constraints affected individuals' frequency of participation in outdoor recreation within each culture.
To address these purposes, an on-site questionnaire was employed at Kobe University and the University of Alberta. In total, 255 Japanese and 228 Euro-Canadian undergraduate students provided useable data. Results of Hotelling T2 tests and follow-up t-tests indicated that Japanese participants reported significantly lower independence/autonomy motivation and higher intrapersonal constraint than their Euro-Canadian counterparts. Hierarchical multiple regression results revealed that Canadian independence/autonomy motivation positively predicted participation in outdoor recreation, whereas both Japanese and Canadian intrapersonal constraint negatively predicted participation in outdoor recreation. These analyses also indicated that adding constraints, after controlling for motivations, significantly increased the coefficient of determination (R2) in both cultures.
This cross-cultural study has both theoretical and practical implications. In regard to the former, it: (a) addressed reported inadequacies in the existing body of cross-cultural knowledge on leisure behaviours; and (b) indicated that not only motivations but also constraints are key variables in explaining outdoor recreation participation in both Japan and Canada. In regard to the latter, this study's results suggests that negotiating constraints, particularly intrapersonal constraints, could play a prominent role in promoting outdoor recreation participation among Japanese adolescents. By conducting cross-cultural research, North American leisure theories and knowledge can be applied to Japanese culture if cultural similarities and differences have first been considered, measured, and evaluated.
