ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews various contributions made by social theory to an understanding of leisure and leisure forms. Social theory becomes a whistle-stop tour of important sites of knowledge where slithers of key text are consumed, and then one is marched back onto the bus to travel to the next destination. The chapter describes the major contours in social theory, and examines strategies for coming to terms with the main features and offers some innovative techniques for getting round the course. Leisure becomes associated with free-time and more recently, with the production and consumption of mass markets around the home, through the mass media and the culture industries. If the 'leisure studies' tradition celebrates form over function, a structuralist perspective emphasises function over form. Much leisure activity provides the opportunity for 'letting one's hair down'; for relaxing conventions which normally apply in domestic and work lives, and for having 'a good time'.
