ABSTRACT
European industrialization and changing family forms in the 19th century demarcated childhood from adulthood, creating a space – leisure – where young people were neither in school, at home or working. Activities in emergent leisure organizations during this period were designed to discipline and train working class young people for good citizenship. Regulation of leisure also became more overt, a common pattern during times of social change, but especially prior to and during periods of war when concerns for the physical condition of young men and the domestic health of young women were at their highest (Bradford, 2006, p.132). Similarly, in the UK at present, leisure is one site where the exigencies of childhood and youth are managed in order to secure young people’s responsible citizenship (Department for Education and Skills [DfES], 2006).
