Leisure practices and its education in the processes of social inclusion: A comparative study with youth in foster care in Catalonia, Galicia and Madrid

Abstract

Leisure, to whose most conventional practices-ludic, festive and recreational-have been added in the last decades, experiences and livings which extend and/or diversify their protagonism in people's daily life, represents an ambit of special importance for human development. Without neglecting the inherence in their realities, the main objective of our research is acquiring knowledge and analyzing what are the leisure-time activities. Involving young people (between 16 and 21 years old) with two well differentiated profiles: on the one hand, those who are being in foster care have been object of some degree of attention, protection or social insertion; on the other hand, those who have maintained their family ties. Under "normal" circumstances like students of Post-compulsory Secondary Education. This research, which has as an empirical support the information obtained through the application of surveys elaborated ad hoc to two samples of both groups in Catalonia, Galicia and Madrid, highlights the coincidences and divergences in their preferences, revealing the possibilities and limitations between those preferences and the leisure time activities that both youth groups carry out. This set of circumstances demands a proper leisure education, which contributes with new perspectives in social and pedagogical code; and, along with them, new opportunities in order to build the equality and the social inclusion of youth in the society we inhabit.