Inclusive Leisure Services

by John Dattilo

Inclusive Leisure Services, 3rd Edition encourages
leisure services providers to promote inclusion of people with disabilities in their programs.

This text will educate future and current leisure services professionals about attitude development and actions that promote positive attitudes about people who have experienced discrimination and segregation. It provides strategies that will facilitate meaningful leisure participation by all participants, while respecting their rights.

Each chapter begins with an orientation activity to familiarize the reader with the content presented in the chapter and to provide an opportunity to interact with others about the topic. Next, a debriefing is provided, containing a short discussion about the orientation activity and a few questions requiring the reader to reflect on the activity. Each chapter contains an introduction designed to briefly acquaint the reader with the topics to be covered. The content of each chapter poses a variety of questions and possible responses. Final thoughts offer additional examples and a chance to reflect on the information presented in each chapter. Each chapter ends with discussion questions to encourage the reader to review the material, identify important aspects of the content, and engage in problem solving. Section Develop Awareness, Section Embrace Diversity, Section Facilitate Participation, Section Consider Disability as an Example for Inclusion, Section about people, Inclusion and Disability

565 pages, paperback

Published August 1, 2018

Reviews

[Reading4Fun]

This book stereotypes “people of privilege”, lumping those of us who meet their definition of “privileged” into one ignorant, insensitive, selfish group of people who seek to oppress and harm others because we are incapable of caring about anyone other than ourselves. People of privilege, according to this book, are “oblivious to life experiences and living conditions of other people” and “fail to recognize their shared humanity.” (Dattilo, 2017, p. 6)

This is counter-productive to the book’s goal of fostering a sense of inclusion and does not take into account that those of us who are “privileged” and “advantaged” use our privilege and advantages to help others whether financially or through community advocacy and volunteer efforts. Just because someone is privileged does not mean they are “interested in continuing [the] existing [oppressive] systems.” (Dattilo, 2017, p. 8)

When “privilege” has such a negative connotation, to apply this definition to broad categories of individuals simply because they are white, wealthy, or otherwise “privileged” is not only offensive, but counter-productive to fostering inclusion. Negative overgeneralizations about any population only furthers the divide between people, fostering a “them” vs. “us”; “privileged” vs “oppressed”; “advantaged” vs “disadvantaged”; “victim” vs “villain” mentality. How can we hope to foster inclusion when we are repeatedly being categorized as operating on opposing sides?

[Kate]

An easy to read book with many examples and insights.