Karen Gallant
Biographic Data
| ID | 207354 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Karen Gallant |
| GIVEN NAMES | Karen |
| FAMILY NAME | Gallant |
| SIGNATURE | GALLANT K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Dalhousie University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5127-6096 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 72 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Making meaning of the smallest units of leisure: A phenomenological exploration of everyday moments of leisure
Building on earlier work conceptualising everyday moments of leisure (EML) as momentary forms of leisure experienced amidst ordinary spaces and activities, this phenomenological research sought to understand how momentary leisure experiences come to occur in people’s lives, the characteristics of such experiences and the meanings attributed to them. Data collection involved interviews with 20 individuals who engaged in up to three interviews abou…
Peritraumatic leisure
Introducing ‘Everyday Moments of Leisure’: Highlighting Enjoyable Breaks and Pauses
“You’re Filipino, you know what I mean”: Navigating co-researcher roles, relational graduate supervision, and shared reflexivity
Reflexivity through shared practices like journaling and ongoing conversations proved to be fruitful for understanding and navigating our positionalities throughout a research study that sought to understand leisure and identity and experiences of new settlers of Philippine descent in times of un/underemployment. Drawing from experiences and lessons learned from engaging in this research, we consider: multiple mediating co-researcher roles that e…
Creating Conversational Interview Podcasts to Replace Guest Lectures
This short brief describes conversational interview podcasts as an alternative to traditional guest lectures in the context of an online undergraduate course that shifted from in-person to virtual course delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. The informal format of conversational interviews counters the impersonal tone that can often pervade online learning environments, allows the instructor to guide the guest speaker to share information that i…
Challenging ideas of inclusion to work toward a more just future: Introduction to the special issue
Long recognized as a human right (Jones, 2010) and a vital social determinant of our health and well-being (Raphael, 2016), inclusion is an essential component of just societies (Kinsley, 2016). Ou
Picturing Recreation: Newcomers’ Perspectives on Experiences of Recreation
Unraveling the Research Process: Humanizing Leisure Scholars
This special issue focuses on the behind-the-scenes, often messy, occurrences of leisure research. Leisure scholars’ engagement in reflexive, collaborative, critical, arts-based, participative, and social justice-oriented research, increase the need to explore and examine significant moments that punctuate and undoubtedly shape the research and themselves as individuals. Humanizing research inherently involves humanizing leisure scholars. Authors…
Are We Done Yet? Reflections on the Sustainability of Knowledge Products
While collaborative research approaches help ensure that knowledge products resulting from research will be relevant to stakeholders and increase the likelihood that they will be integrated into practice, there has been limited attention given to the supports essential to maintaining knowledge products. Focussing on one research project whose knowledge products are heavily used, in this paper, we discuss the challenges associated with maintaining…
Reaching out to welcome in: Guidelines for socially inclusive recreation settings and programs for people with mental health challenges
Leisure education can be a tool for cultivating change not only at the individual level, but also at organizational and broader levels, by engaging diverse stakeholders in tackling the ‘wicked problems’ facing communities, such as the social inclusion of people living with mental health challenges. Community-based recreation provides an avenue for people with mental health challenges to be meaningfully engaged in community life, but they often ex…
What’s a Drink with Friends: A Qualitative Systematic Synthesis of Social Drinking as Leisure
To enrich our understanding of how leisure scholars are engaged in the topic of social drinking, this qualitative systematic synthesis consolidates and describes leisure literature related to social drinking. Following Saini and Shlonsky’s (2012 Saini, M. , & Shlonsky, A . (2012). Systematic synthesis of qualitative research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) methods for systematic syntheses of qualitative liter…
The go-along interview: A valuable tool for leisure research
The go-along interview, where the researcher and participant visit a predetermined location relevant to the research objective, is a data collection method that aligns with, but is distinct from, ethnographic traditions. This article introduces, critiques, and offers suggestions for the use of the go-along interview in leisure research based on two research projects focused on the leisure experiences of people with mental health challenges. We de…
Taking ‘Steps to Connect’ to later life: Exploring leisure program participation among older adults in rural communities
Steps to Connect is a leisure education program that facilitates participation in leisure activities to enable individuals to connect to themselves, to others around them, and to their communities. The authors’ previous program development efforts were focused on individuals with chronic conditions in rural settings, and now there is interest in adapting it for older adults. As such, the authors explored the perceptions and constraints associated…
Risk, nostalgia and the production of the ideal childhood in online commentary on children’s outdoor play
We use Foucauldian discourse analysis to examine comments posted online in response to news articles that reported on one Canadian neighbourhood’s ‘ban’ on children’s outdoor play. Our analysis showed that reader comments, both for and against the ban on street play, accessed discourses of risk that produced an idealised childhood based on close parental supervision. Additionally, nostalgic discourse, the feeling that unfettered, wholesome outdoo…
Serious Leisure: Past, Present, and Possibilities
This chapter describes the development, use, and potential of serious leisure—the concept developed by sociologist Bob Stebbins to describe the systematic pursuit of hobbyist, amateur, and volunteer activities characterised as unique in both the effort required and the benefits that follow. This chapter explores critiques of serious leisure, such as the lack of attention to its stratified nature and its focus on individual rather than community o…
Removing the thorns”: The role of the arts in recovery for people with mental health challenges
While artists sometimes perceived paternalism in audience members, the arts provided a powerful means of communicating about mental illness, countering stigma and challenging dominant ways of conceptualizing mental illness
Fostering self-determination and sense of belonging through leisure education: Reflections on the Steps to Connect program
This article describes the development, implementation, evaluation, and evolution of a leisure education program named Steps to Connect. Originally designed to be a recreation-based extension of chronic disease self-management interventions in community environments, the overall purpose of Steps to Connect was to help participants explore how recreation can help them live well with their health conditions. Drawing from seven program implementatio…
Measurement of feelings of obligation to volunteer: The Obligation to Volunteer as Commitment (OVC) and Obligation to Volunteer as Duty (OVD) scales
While definitions of volunteering centre on the concepts of freedom and choice, in practice volunteering can be imbued with aspects of obligation. This paper describes the development of measures of feelings of obligation to volunteer. As a foundation for scale development, a literature review of feelings of obligation to volunteer suggested two dimensions of obligation: commitment, related to the devotion of volunteers who engage in serious leis…
The Benefits of Recreation for the Recovery and Social Inclusion of Individuals with Mental Illness: An Integrative Review
Previous research has shown the physical health benefits of physical activity for individuals with mental health challenges to their recovery, including reduced symptoms, weight reduction, and improved cardiovascular health. The focus of this previous research has excluded an exploration of the benefits of all types of recreation (including physical activity, creative pursuits, and social recreation) and the possibility of these benefits supporti…
Perceptions of Power Within a Membership-based Seniors' Community Center
As opportunities for citizenship diminish in everyday life amid increasing consumption and privatization, there is a growing realization of the importance of participation and citizen power, particularly for older adults. Gaventa's (1980) Gaventa, J. (1980). Power and powerlessness: Quiescence and rebellion in an Appalachian Valley. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. [Google Scholar] concepts of visible, invisible, and hidden power and Arn…
Can Senior Centres be Contexts for Aging in Third Places
Guided by the concept of third place, a community-based participatory research study examined the features of the physical and social environment (e.g., the interactions and actions that occur) within a small senior centre in a mid-sized Cancadian city, and the meanings associated with them that facilitate or undermine aging in place. Reflexive observation and audio-recordings of team meetings with eight centre members constituted the research da…
Careers in serious leisure: From dabbler to devotee in search of fulfillment
The concept of the “fulfillment career” is the focus of sociologist Bob Stebbins' recent book, Careers in Serious Leisure: From Dabbler to Devotee in Search of Fulfillment (2014). The book describe
Improving psychosocial health and employment outcomes for individuals receiving methadone treatment: A realist synthesis of what makes interventions work
It is important to consider how the contexts of interventions might elicit and/or support clients' engagement. Further research is needed to explore how an individual's background (e.g., involvement with different interventions over an extended period) may influence engagement. Long-term engagement may be necessary to sustain some positive outcomes although how long is unclear and requires further research. Engagement can occur without complete a…
Serious Leisure as an Avenue for Nurturing Community
Using a communitarian framework to explore relationships between individuals and community, survey research was used to examine relationships among volunteers’ personal value orientations of individualism and collectivism, experiences of volunteering as serious leisure, and perceptions of sense of community and social cohesion. Based on survey responses from 300 current volunteers at ten voluntary organizations, findings linked collectivism and i…
Civic Engagement Through Mandatory Community Service: Implications of Serious Leisure
This study explores university students' attitudes of social responsibility and participation in volunteering, examining how these are related to prior experiences of mandatory community service in high school. Students' perceptions of the quality of their mandatory community service experience were found to be powerful predictors of their attitudes towards social responsibility, while ongoing volunteering was found to be influenced more signific…
The Benefits of Recreation for the Recovery and Social Inclusion of Individuals with Mental Illness: An Integrative Review
Previous research has shown the physical health benefits of physical activity for individuals with mental health challenges to their recovery, including reduced symptoms, weight reduction, and improved cardiovascular health. The focus of this previous research has excluded an exploration of the benefits of all types of recreation (including physical activity, creative pursuits, and social recreation) and the possibility of these benefits supporti…
Civic Engagement Through Mandatory Community Service: Implications of Serious Leisure
This study explores university students' attitudes of social responsibility and participation in volunteering, examining how these are related to prior experiences of mandatory community service in high school. Students' perceptions of the quality of their mandatory community service experience were found to be powerful predictors of their attitudes towards social responsibility, while ongoing volunteering was found to be influenced more signific…
Serious Leisure as an Avenue for Nurturing Community
Using a communitarian framework to explore relationships between individuals and community, survey research was used to examine relationships among volunteers’ personal value orientations of individualism and collectivism, experiences of volunteering as serious leisure, and perceptions of sense of community and social cohesion. Based on survey responses from 300 current volunteers at ten voluntary organizations, findings linked collectivism and i…
The go-along interview: A valuable tool for leisure research
The go-along interview, where the researcher and participant visit a predetermined location relevant to the research objective, is a data collection method that aligns with, but is distinct from, ethnographic traditions. This article introduces, critiques, and offers suggestions for the use of the go-along interview in leisure research based on two research projects focused on the leisure experiences of people with mental health challenges. We de…
Fostering self-determination and sense of belonging through leisure education: Reflections on the Steps to Connect program
This article describes the development, implementation, evaluation, and evolution of a leisure education program named Steps to Connect. Originally designed to be a recreation-based extension of chronic disease self-management interventions in community environments, the overall purpose of Steps to Connect was to help participants explore how recreation can help them live well with their health conditions. Drawing from seven program implementatio…
Unraveling the Research Process: Humanizing Leisure Scholars
This special issue focuses on the behind-the-scenes, often messy, occurrences of leisure research. Leisure scholars’ engagement in reflexive, collaborative, critical, arts-based, participative, and social justice-oriented research, increase the need to explore and examine significant moments that punctuate and undoubtedly shape the research and themselves as individuals. Humanizing research inherently involves humanizing leisure scholars. Authors…
What’s a Drink with Friends: A Qualitative Systematic Synthesis of Social Drinking as Leisure
To enrich our understanding of how leisure scholars are engaged in the topic of social drinking, this qualitative systematic synthesis consolidates and describes leisure literature related to social drinking. Following Saini and Shlonsky’s (2012 Saini, M. , & Shlonsky, A . (2012). Systematic synthesis of qualitative research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) methods for systematic syntheses of qualitative liter…
Taking ‘Steps to Connect’ to later life: Exploring leisure program participation among older adults in rural communities
Steps to Connect is a leisure education program that facilitates participation in leisure activities to enable individuals to connect to themselves, to others around them, and to their communities. The authors’ previous program development efforts were focused on individuals with chronic conditions in rural settings, and now there is interest in adapting it for older adults. As such, the authors explored the perceptions and constraints associated…
Removing the thorns”: The role of the arts in recovery for people with mental health challenges
While artists sometimes perceived paternalism in audience members, the arts provided a powerful means of communicating about mental illness, countering stigma and challenging dominant ways of conceptualizing mental illness
Can Senior Centres be Contexts for Aging in Third Places
Guided by the concept of third place, a community-based participatory research study examined the features of the physical and social environment (e.g., the interactions and actions that occur) within a small senior centre in a mid-sized Cancadian city, and the meanings associated with them that facilitate or undermine aging in place. Reflexive observation and audio-recordings of team meetings with eight centre members constituted the research da…
Risk, nostalgia and the production of the ideal childhood in online commentary on children’s outdoor play
We use Foucauldian discourse analysis to examine comments posted online in response to news articles that reported on one Canadian neighbourhood’s ‘ban’ on children’s outdoor play. Our analysis showed that reader comments, both for and against the ban on street play, accessed discourses of risk that produced an idealised childhood based on close parental supervision. Additionally, nostalgic discourse, the feeling that unfettered, wholesome outdoo…
Measurement of feelings of obligation to volunteer: The Obligation to Volunteer as Commitment (OVC) and Obligation to Volunteer as Duty (OVD) scales
While definitions of volunteering centre on the concepts of freedom and choice, in practice volunteering can be imbued with aspects of obligation. This paper describes the development of measures of feelings of obligation to volunteer. As a foundation for scale development, a literature review of feelings of obligation to volunteer suggested two dimensions of obligation: commitment, related to the devotion of volunteers who engage in serious leis…
Civic Engagement Through Mandatory Community Service: Implications of Serious Leisure
This study explores university students' attitudes of social responsibility and participation in volunteering, examining how these are related to prior experiences of mandatory community service in high school. Students' perceptions of the quality of their mandatory community service experience were found to be powerful predictors of their attitudes towards social responsibility, while ongoing volunteering was found to be influenced more signific…
Serious Leisure as an Avenue for Nurturing Community
Using a communitarian framework to explore relationships between individuals and community, survey research was used to examine relationships among volunteers’ personal value orientations of individualism and collectivism, experiences of volunteering as serious leisure, and perceptions of sense of community and social cohesion. Based on survey responses from 300 current volunteers at ten voluntary organizations, findings linked collectivism and i…
Improving psychosocial health and employment outcomes for individuals receiving methadone treatment: A realist synthesis of what makes interventions work
It is important to consider how the contexts of interventions might elicit and/or support clients' engagement. Further research is needed to explore how an individual's background (e.g., involvement with different interventions over an extended period) may influence engagement. Long-term engagement may be necessary to sustain some positive outcomes although how long is unclear and requires further research. Engagement can occur without complete a…
Careers in serious leisure: From dabbler to devotee in search of fulfillment
The concept of the “fulfillment career” is the focus of sociologist Bob Stebbins' recent book, Careers in Serious Leisure: From Dabbler to Devotee in Search of Fulfillment (2014). The book describe
The Benefits of Recreation for the Recovery and Social Inclusion of Individuals with Mental Illness: An Integrative Review
Previous research has shown the physical health benefits of physical activity for individuals with mental health challenges to their recovery, including reduced symptoms, weight reduction, and improved cardiovascular health. The focus of this previous research has excluded an exploration of the benefits of all types of recreation (including physical activity, creative pursuits, and social recreation) and the possibility of these benefits supporti…
Perceptions of Power Within a Membership-based Seniors' Community Center
As opportunities for citizenship diminish in everyday life amid increasing consumption and privatization, there is a growing realization of the importance of participation and citizen power, particularly for older adults. Gaventa's (1980) Gaventa, J. (1980). Power and powerlessness: Quiescence and rebellion in an Appalachian Valley. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. [Google Scholar] concepts of visible, invisible, and hidden power and Arn…
Can Senior Centres be Contexts for Aging in Third Places
Guided by the concept of third place, a community-based participatory research study examined the features of the physical and social environment (e.g., the interactions and actions that occur) within a small senior centre in a mid-sized Cancadian city, and the meanings associated with them that facilitate or undermine aging in place. Reflexive observation and audio-recordings of team meetings with eight centre members constituted the research da…
Serious Leisure: Past, Present, and Possibilities
This chapter describes the development, use, and potential of serious leisure—the concept developed by sociologist Bob Stebbins to describe the systematic pursuit of hobbyist, amateur, and volunteer activities characterised as unique in both the effort required and the benefits that follow. This chapter explores critiques of serious leisure, such as the lack of attention to its stratified nature and its focus on individual rather than community o…
Removing the thorns”: The role of the arts in recovery for people with mental health challenges
While artists sometimes perceived paternalism in audience members, the arts provided a powerful means of communicating about mental illness, countering stigma and challenging dominant ways of conceptualizing mental illness
Fostering self-determination and sense of belonging through leisure education: Reflections on the Steps to Connect program
This article describes the development, implementation, evaluation, and evolution of a leisure education program named Steps to Connect. Originally designed to be a recreation-based extension of chronic disease self-management interventions in community environments, the overall purpose of Steps to Connect was to help participants explore how recreation can help them live well with their health conditions. Drawing from seven program implementatio…
Measurement of feelings of obligation to volunteer: The Obligation to Volunteer as Commitment (OVC) and Obligation to Volunteer as Duty (OVD) scales
While definitions of volunteering centre on the concepts of freedom and choice, in practice volunteering can be imbued with aspects of obligation. This paper describes the development of measures of feelings of obligation to volunteer. As a foundation for scale development, a literature review of feelings of obligation to volunteer suggested two dimensions of obligation: commitment, related to the devotion of volunteers who engage in serious leis…
Taking ‘Steps to Connect’ to later life: Exploring leisure program participation among older adults in rural communities
Steps to Connect is a leisure education program that facilitates participation in leisure activities to enable individuals to connect to themselves, to others around them, and to their communities. The authors’ previous program development efforts were focused on individuals with chronic conditions in rural settings, and now there is interest in adapting it for older adults. As such, the authors explored the perceptions and constraints associated…
Risk, nostalgia and the production of the ideal childhood in online commentary on children’s outdoor play
We use Foucauldian discourse analysis to examine comments posted online in response to news articles that reported on one Canadian neighbourhood’s ‘ban’ on children’s outdoor play. Our analysis showed that reader comments, both for and against the ban on street play, accessed discourses of risk that produced an idealised childhood based on close parental supervision. Additionally, nostalgic discourse, the feeling that unfettered, wholesome outdoo…
Reaching out to welcome in: Guidelines for socially inclusive recreation settings and programs for people with mental health challenges
Leisure education can be a tool for cultivating change not only at the individual level, but also at organizational and broader levels, by engaging diverse stakeholders in tackling the ‘wicked problems’ facing communities, such as the social inclusion of people living with mental health challenges. Community-based recreation provides an avenue for people with mental health challenges to be meaningfully engaged in community life, but they often ex…
What’s a Drink with Friends: A Qualitative Systematic Synthesis of Social Drinking as Leisure
To enrich our understanding of how leisure scholars are engaged in the topic of social drinking, this qualitative systematic synthesis consolidates and describes leisure literature related to social drinking. Following Saini and Shlonsky’s (2012 Saini, M. , & Shlonsky, A . (2012). Systematic synthesis of qualitative research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) methods for systematic syntheses of qualitative liter…
The go-along interview: A valuable tool for leisure research
The go-along interview, where the researcher and participant visit a predetermined location relevant to the research objective, is a data collection method that aligns with, but is distinct from, ethnographic traditions. This article introduces, critiques, and offers suggestions for the use of the go-along interview in leisure research based on two research projects focused on the leisure experiences of people with mental health challenges. We de…
Unraveling the Research Process: Humanizing Leisure Scholars
This special issue focuses on the behind-the-scenes, often messy, occurrences of leisure research. Leisure scholars’ engagement in reflexive, collaborative, critical, arts-based, participative, and social justice-oriented research, increase the need to explore and examine significant moments that punctuate and undoubtedly shape the research and themselves as individuals. Humanizing research inherently involves humanizing leisure scholars. Authors…
Are We Done Yet? Reflections on the Sustainability of Knowledge Products
While collaborative research approaches help ensure that knowledge products resulting from research will be relevant to stakeholders and increase the likelihood that they will be integrated into practice, there has been limited attention given to the supports essential to maintaining knowledge products. Focussing on one research project whose knowledge products are heavily used, in this paper, we discuss the challenges associated with maintaining…
Picturing Recreation: Newcomers’ Perspectives on Experiences of Recreation
Creating Conversational Interview Podcasts to Replace Guest Lectures
This short brief describes conversational interview podcasts as an alternative to traditional guest lectures in the context of an online undergraduate course that shifted from in-person to virtual course delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. The informal format of conversational interviews counters the impersonal tone that can often pervade online learning environments, allows the instructor to guide the guest speaker to share information that i…
Challenging ideas of inclusion to work toward a more just future: Introduction to the special issue
Long recognized as a human right (Jones, 2010) and a vital social determinant of our health and well-being (Raphael, 2016), inclusion is an essential component of just societies (Kinsley, 2016). Ou
Introducing ‘Everyday Moments of Leisure’: Highlighting Enjoyable Breaks and Pauses
“You’re Filipino, you know what I mean”: Navigating co-researcher roles, relational graduate supervision, and shared reflexivity
Reflexivity through shared practices like journaling and ongoing conversations proved to be fruitful for understanding and navigating our positionalities throughout a research study that sought to understand leisure and identity and experiences of new settlers of Philippine descent in times of un/underemployment. Drawing from experiences and lessons learned from engaging in this research, we consider: multiple mediating co-researcher roles that e…
Peritraumatic leisure
Making meaning of the smallest units of leisure: A phenomenological exploration of everyday moments of leisure
Building on earlier work conceptualising everyday moments of leisure (EML) as momentary forms of leisure experienced amidst ordinary spaces and activities, this phenomenological research sought to understand how momentary leisure experiences come to occur in people’s lives, the characteristics of such experiences and the meanings attributed to them. Data collection involved interviews with 20 individuals who engaged in up to three interviews abou…
Psychology (19 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Recreation, Leisure, Wilderness Management (16 works) · Political science (14 works) · Social Psychology (12 works) · Public relations (11 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Social science (9 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Medicine (6 works)