Interpreting perceived constraints to ethnic and racial recreation participation using a recreation systems approach

Ethnic and racial minority groups continue to experience limited access to leisure activities, resources, and services. To reverse this trend, leisure scholars have developed numerous models of constraints to recreation participation. The present article introduces an alternative systems approach to modeling constraints, which organizes constraints by their component parts–functions, mechanisms, or capacities–as well as their mode: social, psychological, or biological. Specifically, the article advances More and Averill’s Recreation Systems Model and recommends the model as a guide for the design, analysis, and interpretation of ethnic and racial constraints research. The utility of the model is discussed in the context of open-ended questionnaire data collected from indoor competition climbers during the winter of 2014. The authors contend that modeling constraints in a Recreation Systems framework may assist practitioners in efficiently prioritizing and consequently addressing constraints. Future research that quantitatively tests the model and investigates its use by policymakers is needed.