Are We Welcome? African American Racial Acceptance in Leisure Activities and the Importance Given to Children's Leisure

AbstractThis study investigated differences between middle-class African American and middle-class European American adults in their perceptions of how "welcome" African Americans are in 20 leisure activities common to the study area, and in the importance given to children's participation in these activities. A random sample of 45 blocks from a southern U.S.A. metropolitan census tract composed of racially integrated middle-class neighborhoods yielded 124 African American and 170 European American households who rated the activities on Likert-type scales. Using 2-tailed t tests, with an F (folded) statistic to test for equality of the 2 variances, and a Bonferroni correction for multiple comparison tests, significant differences (p <.001) between African Americans and European Americans were found for 16 activities (80%) on "welcome" scale scores, and 10 activities (50%) on children's "importance" scale scores. When scale scores were ranked, a strong association was shown between the racial groups for both "welcome" (R =.95, p <.001) and "importance" measures (R =.48, p <.05). The present study suggests three major conclusions: (a) Middle-class African Americans and middle-class European Americans strongly agree on where African Americans are most likely to be welcomed and where they will not be welcomed, (b) Middle-class African Americans feel much less welcome in most leisure activities than middle-class European Americans believe, and (c) Middle-class African Americans and middle-class European Americans, when thinking of themselves as parents, believe many of the same leisure activities are important for children; however, European Americans rated many more leisure activities as very important when compared to African Americans.KEYWORDS: RaceAfrican Americanacceptancediscriminationchildrenleisure