Contemporary British Culture &
Society ( 6 )
Chapter 6
Xiao Huiyun
October,2005
A 1 Introduction
? Leisure – freely chosen activities pursued
during non-working time,related to financial
security provided by work
? Leisure -- free time during which somebody
has no obligations or work responsibilities,
and therefore is free to engage in enjoyable
activities
A 2 Leisure at Home
? The most common leisure activities among people in
the United Kingdom are home-based,or social,such
as entertaining or visiting relatives and friends
? Watching television is by far the most popular leisure
pastime; Britain's regular weekly dramas or 'soap
operas' such as 'Eastenders' and 'Coronation Street'
have more viewers than any other programme,
? Other regular pastimes include listening to the radio
and to recorded music,reading books,gardening,do-
it-yourself home improvements and doing puzzle,
? Pop and rock albums are the most common type of
music bought,and pop is by far the most popular form
of musical expression in Britain
A 2 Leisure at Home
? Nearly three quarters
of people in the UK
now do some sort of
puzzle,from
newspaper crosswords
and coffee-break
teasers to puzzles in
magazines and even
taking part at home in
TV shows.
A 2 Leisure at Home
British Soap Opera
? The storylines of Coronation
Street tend to concentrate on
relationships within and
between families rather than on
topical or social issues
? Coronation Street is imbued
with a definite feeling of
community,Through its account
of supposedly everyday life,the
programme shows a high
degree of social realism
? The Street,as it is affectionately
known,has been at the top of
the U.K,ratings for over thirty
years,
? Coronation Street
A 2 Leisure at Home
? All ethnic minority groups
are,broadly,more likely to
read three of the four
broadsheets than would be
predicted from their socio-
economic profile,This
suggests something of a
preference for these titles,
possibly because of the
scope of their news
coverage or because of
their often more balanced
style.
? Newspaper Readership
A 2 Leisure at Home
? Leisure & Lifestyle
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
? Greater gender & class differences in patterns of leisure
activities outside the home
? Provision of leisure activities -- local government,private
companies,voluntary organizations
? The Pub – public bar & lounge bar,dartboards,snookers,
bar billiards,skittles,dominoes,electronic games,juke
boxes,TV,live music entertainment,local jazz group or
rock ?n? roll band
? More money spend on drink in pubs,restaurants or wine
bars than on any other form of leisure activity
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
? Bar
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
? Pub
? dominoes
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
? Dartboard ? Lounge bar
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
? Wine bar
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
? Bar Billiards ? Snookers
? Skittles ? Ten-pin bowling
A 3 leisure outside the Home
? Jukebox ? Country bar
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
? Meal in restaurants
? Library
? Cinema
? Historic buildings
? Short break holiday
? Disco or night club
? Museum or art gallery
? Funfair
? Camping or caravanning
? Bingo
? Visiting betting shops
? Theatre,ballet,opera,minority pursuits yet giving Britain
high cultural profile
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Gambling
? Betting shop (Bookies) ? Football pools
? Horse racing
? Bets placed at Bookies
? Popular forms of
gambling in Britain
? Betting on horse racing
practised by working
rather than middle
class
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Gambling
? Since the first game on Saturday 19th
November 1994 more than 90% of the UK
population have played the National Lottery
games at sometime,with around 65% of the
population playing on a regular basis,The total
amount of ￡12 billion has been given to the
'good causes'.
? The good causes have already helped deprived
groups,saved buildings and national treasures,
enabled more people to enjoy sports and the
arts.
A 3 Leisure outside the Home Gambling
? Out of every ￡1 spent on
a Lottery ticket 28 pence
goes towards the good
causes.
? How's the money
distributed:
?
? Where does the good
causes money go?
National Lottery partners
The National Lottery is a partnership between Government,the Lottery
Commission,the National Lottery Operator and the Distribution Bodies to raise
money for the good causes in local communities.
GOVERNMENT
THE DEPARTMENT
OF CULTURE
MEDIA AND
SPORT
THE
NATIONAL
LOTTERY
COMMISSION
NLDBs
The Arts Council
National Lottery Charities Board
The Heritage Lottery Fund
The Millennium Commission
The New Opportunities Fund
Sports Council The
THE NATIONAL
LOTTERY
OPERATOR
CAMELOT
NATIONAL LOTTERY
DISTRIBUTION
BODIES
NLDBs
GOOD CAUSES
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
The National Lottery
? Five groups of beneficiaries were designated by the
Government to receive equal shares of funds from The
National Lottery:
? The Arts Councils of England,Scotland,Wales and
Northern Ireland
? The Sports Councils of England,Scotland,Wales and
Northern Ireland
? The National Lottery Charities Board
? The National Heritage Memorial Fund
? The Millennium Fund (A fund to celebrate the year 2000
and the beginning of the third millennium,)
? A sixth was added in 1998
? The New Opportunities Fund — for projects covering
education,health and the environment
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Gambling
? UK National Lottery
Winning Cards by
Week
? The first 20 winning
cards,.,
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Gambling
? Tickets sold through
newsagents and post
offices -- where everybody
goes
? On Saturday nights the
weekly programme where
the draw is made has 12
million viewers
? The Lottery is about the
possibility of social change
? It has caused social
upheaval and division.
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
? Bingo hall ? Bingo hall
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Sport
? Of all sporting activities,walking is by far the
most popular for men and for women of all
ages,Whilst men tend to dominate golf and
cue sports such as snooker and billiards,
women generally prefer swimming,keep-fit
classes and yoga.
? Sport,when compared with other leisure
activities,has secured a more central place
in the national culture of contemporary
Britain,
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Sports & the British Culture
? Precisely because it has become such a part and
parcel of British culture and society,sport is,not
unexpectedly,problematic.
? Sport has nowadays been related to the question
of drugs; it is no longer a leisure activity; it?s a
business!?,it is a potentially political issue?,,
? There also exists in the field a variation of social-
class membership with regard to active
participation in sports,It is noted that the better the
class,the greater the rate of the participation,
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Sport & the British Culture
? And we should remember that ―class consciousness is
fundamental to the British sense of national identity,
Differences of accent,dress,taste and life style all
serve as markers of class‖ (Raw and Walker,1994,p,
5),Sport,of course,is of no exception,
? Whilst fox hunting is traditionally considered an upper-
class pursuit,football is widely regarded as a hallmark
of the working class,Certain changes may have taken
place in the twentieth century,but divisions are still
there.
? Cricket has a rather upper class as well as rural flavour;
playing cricket is meant to be synonymous with
gentlemanly behaviour,– fair play,team spirit,
individual excellence,―not cricket” (see p 109 for more)
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Sport
? Soccer
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Sport
? Cricket
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Sport
? Cricket ? Horse racing
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Sport
? Netball
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Sport
? Aroebics
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
? Why participate?
? To know more people &
understand them better
? To learn how to get along
with others
? To get a feeling of
excitement & a sense of
success
? To have experience of
wearing popular &
fashionable sports clothes
A 3 leisure outside the Home
Fox Hunting
Language & Culture
? Variations in terminology used to describe people
watching leisure entertainment
? Soccer -- crowds,suggesting,amorphous”
? Rugby -- spectators,“dispassionate onlookers”
? Cinema --audiences,more sophisticated,listen
? TV -- viewers,denying passivity of TV,couch
potato”
? Theatre -- theatre- goers,some form of
dynamism
? Opera -- opera buffs,uniform worn by smart
regiments
A 3 Leisure outside the home
Youth organizations
? Boys? scouts ? Boys brigade
Conclusion
The Defining Factors of Identity
? Education,work,and leisure are defining
aspects of British cultural identity.
? Schools place a distinctive stamp on their
pupils – a past pupil will be defined as a
product of Shrewbury School or King Street
primary.
? This pattern is repeated in the work arena,
People define themselves by their schools
and their work functions.
Conclusion
The Defining Factors of Identity
? The rhetorical question ?How do you do??,on
being introduced to people is very shortly followed
by ?What do you do?? and soon by ? Where did you
go to school??
? So education and work are significant defining
aspects of identity,
? As we have seen further,people will always try to
take control of their lives and define their own
identities through the exercise of individual choice
in their leisure activities,
Society ( 6 )
Chapter 6
Xiao Huiyun
October,2005
A 1 Introduction
? Leisure – freely chosen activities pursued
during non-working time,related to financial
security provided by work
? Leisure -- free time during which somebody
has no obligations or work responsibilities,
and therefore is free to engage in enjoyable
activities
A 2 Leisure at Home
? The most common leisure activities among people in
the United Kingdom are home-based,or social,such
as entertaining or visiting relatives and friends
? Watching television is by far the most popular leisure
pastime; Britain's regular weekly dramas or 'soap
operas' such as 'Eastenders' and 'Coronation Street'
have more viewers than any other programme,
? Other regular pastimes include listening to the radio
and to recorded music,reading books,gardening,do-
it-yourself home improvements and doing puzzle,
? Pop and rock albums are the most common type of
music bought,and pop is by far the most popular form
of musical expression in Britain
A 2 Leisure at Home
? Nearly three quarters
of people in the UK
now do some sort of
puzzle,from
newspaper crosswords
and coffee-break
teasers to puzzles in
magazines and even
taking part at home in
TV shows.
A 2 Leisure at Home
British Soap Opera
? The storylines of Coronation
Street tend to concentrate on
relationships within and
between families rather than on
topical or social issues
? Coronation Street is imbued
with a definite feeling of
community,Through its account
of supposedly everyday life,the
programme shows a high
degree of social realism
? The Street,as it is affectionately
known,has been at the top of
the U.K,ratings for over thirty
years,
? Coronation Street
A 2 Leisure at Home
? All ethnic minority groups
are,broadly,more likely to
read three of the four
broadsheets than would be
predicted from their socio-
economic profile,This
suggests something of a
preference for these titles,
possibly because of the
scope of their news
coverage or because of
their often more balanced
style.
? Newspaper Readership
A 2 Leisure at Home
? Leisure & Lifestyle
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
? Greater gender & class differences in patterns of leisure
activities outside the home
? Provision of leisure activities -- local government,private
companies,voluntary organizations
? The Pub – public bar & lounge bar,dartboards,snookers,
bar billiards,skittles,dominoes,electronic games,juke
boxes,TV,live music entertainment,local jazz group or
rock ?n? roll band
? More money spend on drink in pubs,restaurants or wine
bars than on any other form of leisure activity
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
? Bar
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
? Pub
? dominoes
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
? Dartboard ? Lounge bar
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
? Wine bar
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
? Bar Billiards ? Snookers
? Skittles ? Ten-pin bowling
A 3 leisure outside the Home
? Jukebox ? Country bar
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
? Meal in restaurants
? Library
? Cinema
? Historic buildings
? Short break holiday
? Disco or night club
? Museum or art gallery
? Funfair
? Camping or caravanning
? Bingo
? Visiting betting shops
? Theatre,ballet,opera,minority pursuits yet giving Britain
high cultural profile
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Gambling
? Betting shop (Bookies) ? Football pools
? Horse racing
? Bets placed at Bookies
? Popular forms of
gambling in Britain
? Betting on horse racing
practised by working
rather than middle
class
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Gambling
? Since the first game on Saturday 19th
November 1994 more than 90% of the UK
population have played the National Lottery
games at sometime,with around 65% of the
population playing on a regular basis,The total
amount of ￡12 billion has been given to the
'good causes'.
? The good causes have already helped deprived
groups,saved buildings and national treasures,
enabled more people to enjoy sports and the
arts.
A 3 Leisure outside the Home Gambling
? Out of every ￡1 spent on
a Lottery ticket 28 pence
goes towards the good
causes.
? How's the money
distributed:
?
? Where does the good
causes money go?
National Lottery partners
The National Lottery is a partnership between Government,the Lottery
Commission,the National Lottery Operator and the Distribution Bodies to raise
money for the good causes in local communities.
GOVERNMENT
THE DEPARTMENT
OF CULTURE
MEDIA AND
SPORT
THE
NATIONAL
LOTTERY
COMMISSION
NLDBs
The Arts Council
National Lottery Charities Board
The Heritage Lottery Fund
The Millennium Commission
The New Opportunities Fund
Sports Council The
THE NATIONAL
LOTTERY
OPERATOR
CAMELOT
NATIONAL LOTTERY
DISTRIBUTION
BODIES
NLDBs
GOOD CAUSES
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
The National Lottery
? Five groups of beneficiaries were designated by the
Government to receive equal shares of funds from The
National Lottery:
? The Arts Councils of England,Scotland,Wales and
Northern Ireland
? The Sports Councils of England,Scotland,Wales and
Northern Ireland
? The National Lottery Charities Board
? The National Heritage Memorial Fund
? The Millennium Fund (A fund to celebrate the year 2000
and the beginning of the third millennium,)
? A sixth was added in 1998
? The New Opportunities Fund — for projects covering
education,health and the environment
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Gambling
? UK National Lottery
Winning Cards by
Week
? The first 20 winning
cards,.,
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Gambling
? Tickets sold through
newsagents and post
offices -- where everybody
goes
? On Saturday nights the
weekly programme where
the draw is made has 12
million viewers
? The Lottery is about the
possibility of social change
? It has caused social
upheaval and division.
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
? Bingo hall ? Bingo hall
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Sport
? Of all sporting activities,walking is by far the
most popular for men and for women of all
ages,Whilst men tend to dominate golf and
cue sports such as snooker and billiards,
women generally prefer swimming,keep-fit
classes and yoga.
? Sport,when compared with other leisure
activities,has secured a more central place
in the national culture of contemporary
Britain,
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Sports & the British Culture
? Precisely because it has become such a part and
parcel of British culture and society,sport is,not
unexpectedly,problematic.
? Sport has nowadays been related to the question
of drugs; it is no longer a leisure activity; it?s a
business!?,it is a potentially political issue?,,
? There also exists in the field a variation of social-
class membership with regard to active
participation in sports,It is noted that the better the
class,the greater the rate of the participation,
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Sport & the British Culture
? And we should remember that ―class consciousness is
fundamental to the British sense of national identity,
Differences of accent,dress,taste and life style all
serve as markers of class‖ (Raw and Walker,1994,p,
5),Sport,of course,is of no exception,
? Whilst fox hunting is traditionally considered an upper-
class pursuit,football is widely regarded as a hallmark
of the working class,Certain changes may have taken
place in the twentieth century,but divisions are still
there.
? Cricket has a rather upper class as well as rural flavour;
playing cricket is meant to be synonymous with
gentlemanly behaviour,– fair play,team spirit,
individual excellence,―not cricket” (see p 109 for more)
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Sport
? Soccer
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Sport
? Cricket
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Sport
? Cricket ? Horse racing
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Sport
? Netball
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
Sport
? Aroebics
A 3 Leisure outside the Home
? Why participate?
? To know more people &
understand them better
? To learn how to get along
with others
? To get a feeling of
excitement & a sense of
success
? To have experience of
wearing popular &
fashionable sports clothes
A 3 leisure outside the Home
Fox Hunting
Language & Culture
? Variations in terminology used to describe people
watching leisure entertainment
? Soccer -- crowds,suggesting,amorphous”
? Rugby -- spectators,“dispassionate onlookers”
? Cinema --audiences,more sophisticated,listen
? TV -- viewers,denying passivity of TV,couch
potato”
? Theatre -- theatre- goers,some form of
dynamism
? Opera -- opera buffs,uniform worn by smart
regiments
A 3 Leisure outside the home
Youth organizations
? Boys? scouts ? Boys brigade
Conclusion
The Defining Factors of Identity
? Education,work,and leisure are defining
aspects of British cultural identity.
? Schools place a distinctive stamp on their
pupils – a past pupil will be defined as a
product of Shrewbury School or King Street
primary.
? This pattern is repeated in the work arena,
People define themselves by their schools
and their work functions.
Conclusion
The Defining Factors of Identity
? The rhetorical question ?How do you do??,on
being introduced to people is very shortly followed
by ?What do you do?? and soon by ? Where did you
go to school??
? So education and work are significant defining
aspects of identity,
? As we have seen further,people will always try to
take control of their lives and define their own
identities through the exercise of individual choice
in their leisure activities,
