Leisure Patterns and Values in Adolescents from Serbia born in 1990s: An Attempt at Building a Bridge between the Two Domains

This work is an attempt at empirically establishing a relation between leisure and values in adolescents. Being new, this topic could help a broader understanding of youth leisure and its association with inner psychological dispositions, but also with specific social context (prolonged economic crisis and post-war environment). Five typical leisure patterns were previously identified: academic, sports, going out, following celebrities in the media and music, and computers pattern. The main objective was to discover whether students with high and low scores on these patterns differ regarding their values. The sample consisted of 2426 Serbian secondary school students from 9 towns. A discriminant analysis was performed and showed that it was possible to identify a specific mix of personal and social values for every leisure pattern. This confirms the existence of a relation between students’ behaviour during free time and their values, expressed as a preference for specific personal and social goals. The resultss imply that connecting two domains is achievable and fruitful in both ways. The identified leisure patterns contribute to a more detailed and elaborate portrayal of adolescents’ values but those values also bring a new insight into specific features of adolescents’ behaviour during leisure time.

When it comes to values, the research shifting from materialistic to post-materialistic values represents the foundation of contemporary studies (A'gulia et al. 2008: 275-290;Inglehart 1977: 3-392;Inglehart 2008: 130-144). However, such a shift may not occur in countries in a deep economic crisis, in transition or those involved in war conflicts (Inglehart & Abramson 1994: 346-350). Serbian society has been going through a massive change from communistic social order to liberal capitalism (Kuzmanović, Popadić & Havelka 1995: 7-25). This transformation was accompanied by the disintegration of previous country, war, transition and poverty (Gavrilović & Stojanović 2010: 62-64). Hence it would be interesting to investigate the differences in the existing values in adolescents born in 1990's that grew up in that turbulent period.

Problem
Our main objective is to connect leisure patterns of the adolescents born in 1990s with the values they appreciate. There is a lack of knowledge regarding the relation between adolescents' leisure activities and their dispositions, except personality traits (Schwartz & Fouts 2003: 205-212;Weaver 1991Weaver : 1293Weaver -1297. Rare studies focus on orientations towards broader values and several related activities. Stattin and Kerr (2001: 22) argue that self-focused (focus on one's own needs and enjoyment) and other-focused values (focus on people, relationships and the common good) are reflected in adolescents' leisure habits. Youngsters with other-focused values are home-centred and involved in sport, music, hobbies. Conversely, over-involvement in peer culture might be the hallmark of self-focused adolescents. Similarly, Hofer and associates (2007: 22-23) argued that values are relevant for academic achievement and found a relationship between achievement and wellbeing orientations and a preference regarding spending time in school-related or leisure activities.
It is unusual that the relationship between values and leisure is rarely investigated since valuing is often a salient factor in the field of leisure studies. Several psychological and sociological theories consider leisure activities as a sign of a life quality or opportunities one has. An (in) explicit assumption is that some adolescents spend free time in a more productive way than others (Eccles & Berber, 1999: 10-25;Mahoney, Harris & Eccles 2006: 3-30). The positive development theory sees leisure as a possible SERBIAN POLITICAL THOUGHT resource for enhancing youth interests and skills (Hunter & Csikszentmihalyi 2003: 27-32;Larson 2000: 170). Extracurricular activities are especially highlighted as beneficial for such development (Eccles & Berber 1999: 10-25;Mahoney, Harris & Eccles 2006: 3-30). Stebbins (1997: 17-21) distinguishes serious and casual leisure considering effort, devotion and preservation associated with activities during one's spare time. Spending most of time socialising with friends or/and in passive activities are connected with boredom and maladaptive behaviours (Mahoney & Stattin 2000: 113-125;Mc Hale, Crouter & Tucker 2001: 1764-1776Osgood et al. 1996: 635-652).
Leisure within the quality life framework is associated with the presence of social equality and justice as significant values in the contemporary society. Hence, Bourdieu's theory (Bourdieu 1979(Bourdieu : 4-7, 1984 about social class effect on inequalities in opportunities to engage in certain lifestyle, manifested throw the leisure activities, is well acknowledged and empirically established (López-Sintas, Ghahraman & Rubiales 2016: 289-290). Roberts (2012: 328-331) closely connects social class division with the leisure concept. Unlike positive development theory and Stebbins' serious leisure notion, Roberts (1997: 10-13) argues that global trends from the end of XX century made youth's leisure time a rapidly changing phenomenon whose function is dominantly fun. Accordingly, leisure could affect youth identity and values but older social markers such as age, gender and social class seem to be more influential (Roberts 2013: 1-9).
We investigate the relationship between values and leisure from a different perspective. We did not consider values as tools for evaluating the quality of leisure or in the context of social differences. Instead, we treat it as inner disposition and a characteristic of each adolescent. Values are usually defined as 'desirable trans-situational goals, varying in importance, which serve as guiding principles in the life of a person' (Schwartz 1994: 20-25). Authors emphasise (Ajzen 1991: 199-200;Moretti & Higgins 1999: 186-191) that people incline towards goals related to their private life (personal values) and the others connected to the society they live in (social values). With respect to the claim that values presumably govern experience, youth behaviour during leisure should be considered as a field where values are expressed. Besides, experiences themselves may modify or reinforce the salience of values over time (Rokeach 1985: 1 53-169;Stattin & Kerr 2001: 21-23). Accordingly, exploration and commitment to certain leisure activities is regarded as an important factor in adulthood transition (Coatsworth et al., 2005: 362-363;Feinstein, Bynner & Duckworth 2006: 305-307, Northcote 2006Shaw, Kleiber, & Caldwell 1995: 247-248). Serious leisure activities have potential to become a source of meaning, identity and solidarity (Rojek 2001: i-iv).

Aims
Previously mentioned investigations imply that, albeit insufficiently investigated, a relation between the domains of values and leisure exists. Thus our main goal is to empirically explore the existence of that connection and possibly provide additional understanding of the youth life. As mentioned before, until now values have mostly represented salient factors in the field of leisure studies and have not been considered as intrapsychic characteristic of an individual. Rare studies investigated few value orientations rather than a whole list of particular values. Furthermore, sociological studies usually followed generations differences in values (Bynner & Parsons 2000: 237-247;Sun & Wang 2010: 65-79) while we shall be focused on individual differences in values and their connection with particular leisure patterns within one developmental period, adolescence.
Insight into the appreciation of values among Serbian adolescents is also investigated. This aim is related to the discussion regarding changes of values in modern society that made the role of leisure in adolescents' life more important (A'gulia, et al. 2008: 275-290;Inglehart 2008: 130-144). Additionally, specific social and historical circumstances in former Communist countries (such as Serbia) as a context for adolescents' growing up are thought to be relevant for our research topic.

Setting and Participants
The sample was the quota including 2426 secondary school students aged 14-19 from 9 towns and different regions in Serbia (northern, central and southern). Schools from 3 towns (large, medium and small) in each region were included and in every school one class from each year was chosen randomly. All in all, students (59% female and 41% male) from 26 schools (21% from three-year vocational schools, 38% from four-year vocational schools and 41% from grammar schools) and 97 classes participated in the study and came from the first (27%), second (28%), third (26%) and fourth year (19%).

Procedure
The survey was done in 2008, in the course of 2 regular school classes by the school psychologist, who had been trained to conduct the instruments. Students were told that the goal of the study was to learn about their habits during spare time. Anonymity of data was ensured and all students participated voluntarily, with parental consent obtained.

Leisure Pattern Measures
In the previous data analysis (Stepanović, Videnović & Plut 2009: 255-258) leisure patterns were identified, but the relationship with values was not investigated at that time. The patterns were extracted from a questionnaire consisting of 70 items. Examined leisure activities covered the following domains: music (preferences for: folk, pop, rock, hip-hop, techno); reading books; reading various journals (popular science, culture, sport, celebrities, crossword puzzles, Sudoku, horoscope, romance novellas); watching different TV programmes (sport, popular science and reality shows); computers usage (socialising, educational purposes, writing blogs, playing computer games, listening to music, watching movies); going out (to open spaces like parks, school yards etc., cafés, discotheques, clubs); attendance at the various events (theatres, classical music concerts, pop and rock concerts, folk music concerts, DJ events, sport matches); engagement in sport activities, extracurricular activities and volunteering. The principal component factor analysis and Varimax rotation were performed and the 5 leisure orientations were extracted (see Table 1): academic, sport, orientation towards entertainment media, going out and orientation towards music and computers (Stepanović, Videnović & Plut 2009: 255-256).

Statistical analysis
In order to investigate the relation between students' values and the extracted leisure patterns, for each pattern 2 extreme groups of students (25% of students with highest and 25% students with lowest scores at the certain factor) were formed. The upper group is seen as representing students prone to a certain leisure pattern, and the lower was formed from students who do not manifest that type of behaviour. The 2 groups have been compared by a discriminant analysis within each of five leisure patterns regarding personal and social goals taken together. It is obvious that the most valuable personal goals are interpersonal relationship with peers, love, material standards, independence and hedonism. The least preferable ones are social power, submissiveness and popularity. The most important social goals for Serbian youth are dominantly connected to economic issues (employment, free education and health care, living standards), environmental objectives and fight against crime and corruption. Social goals students deem least significant are privatisation, strong market and economy and one-party system. Regarding social goals it is obvious that even the least preferable values have average acceptance of above or around 3, which means that these goals are also quite important.

Results
As already mentioned, the relationship between leisure and goal preferences was examined by discriminant analysis involving the comparison of 2 extreme groups within identified 5 leisure patterns. For each pattern one statistically significant discriminant function is found which suggests the presence of values that differentiate adolescents with opposite habits during free time. The rate of correct classifications was similar for each discriminant function, showing that 63-74% of the students can be correctly classified in two extreme groups. The data regarding extracted discriminant functions are presented in Table 3. The content of obtained discriminant functions can be seen in Table 4, which represents a structure matrix for each leisure pattern. In the presented matrix the correlations between personal and social goals and suitable discriminant function are given. In accordance with conventional guidelines, loadings of less than .30 were not interpreted (Tabachnick & Fidell 1989: 509 According to the structure matrix, values which dominantly indicate the difference between the group of students orientated towards academic content and the group from the opposite extreme are: knowledge, self-actualisation, good inter-ethnic relations, altruism, excitement, safety, development of science and culture. Students who follow and do sports more than those who do not, appreciate values such as: country and territorial integrity, tradition and national identity, the strengthening of defence forces and popularity. Students who seek entertainment through media differ from those who do not incline to it mostly with respect to the following values: submissiveness, religious values, healthy life, popularity, love, joining the European Union. Differences between adolescents who like to go out and those who do not, are predominantly related to: excitement, popularity and hedonism. Distinctive values of adolescents who spend time listening to music and in front of computers (dominant activity on computers: listening to music and watching movies) are: reputation, achievement, hedonism, excitement, civic engagement, friendship and safety.

Discussion
When it comes to general acceptance of personal values, two dominant tendencies can be seen. Firstly, values like friendship, love and independence, typical for adolescence as a developmental stage (Brown & Larson 2009: 74-103;Collins & Steinberg 2008: 551-590;Erikson 1994: 51-97;Petersen & Spiga 1982: 515-528) are widely accepted, and values in contrast to becoming independent (submissiveness) are hardly ever accepted. Secondly, appreciating economic welfare, concrete pleasures and the need for safety reflects materialistic values. Attaching importance to such survival values could be, at least partially, attributed to the prolonged economic crisis in Serbia. However, Twenge (2017: 205) claims that millennials in USA, the generation born in 1990s as our respondents, also value high economic standard. Low score on obtaining social power is seemingly in contrast with the desire for better economic and social conditions. However, the other data from our questionnaire show that adolescents are relatively uninterested in politics (25% follow political events, and 40% would use their right to vote) which is also found in Western countries when it comes to official politics represented through politicians and their parties (Farthing 2010: 185-186). In Serbia particularly the exaggerated politicisation of society and the lack of trust in the political elite can be seen as the reason for alienation of the adolescents from politics, despite the fact that political issues are a very frequent topic in the media (Kuzmanović & Petrović 2005: 441;Stepanović Ilić, Blažanin & Mojović 2017: 10).
Preferred social goals are entirely concordant with the other tendency identified in the area of personal goals. Namely, the young attach importance to employment, free education and health care and higher living standards, hoping for a more secure future taking into account the situation in Serbia, which offers significantly fewer opportunities compared to other European countries. This is in agreement with the data on high unemployment rate in Serbia, since almost one fifth of the population was unemployed during the survey time (Serbian Institute for Statistics, 2008). One of widely accepted social goals is fight against crime and corruption, which is understandable bearing in mind post-conflict transitional society with a relatively high incidence of organised crime (Đekić 2016:783;Golubović & Džunić 2015: 174-177;Mladenović, 2012: 195-208) and high presence of corruption at all levels (Balšić 2016: 65-86;Madžar 2015: 17). Low preference of liberal values (strong market economy, privatisation) could be part of socialist legacy but probably to a certain extent a result of a badly conducted economic transition also.
Values characteristic for young people orientated towards some of the previously identified leisure patterns offer additional insight into their lifestyle and world view. In general, findings have confirmed the assumption that there is a relationship between leisure behaviour and values. Discriminant analysis shows that it is possible to extract interpretability function which serves as the criterion for distinguishing between 2 extreme groups (decliner and incliner) on each pattern. In accordance with that, leisure time is connected with inner dispositions such as values which are, as Hitlin (2003: 118-135) suggested, one of the core components of identity structure. The results imply that personal goals are a more significant for differentiation between adolescents inclined to patterns orientated towards fun (entertainment media, going out, music POLITICAL THOUGHT and computers patterns) and those who are not. When it comes to other patterns, a mix of social and personal goals describes students with academic orientation, while social goals mostly characterise adolescents who follow sport.
The appreciated values of youth engaged in academic activities are related to self-actualisation dominantly through knowledge acquisition. It can be considered consistent with findings of Hofer and associates (2007: 22-23) regarding tendency of adolescents with achievement value orientation to invest more time in learning than in fun. These adolescents also emphasise the importance of normal social conditions in which they can fulfil their goals, expressed in preference of good inter-ethnic relations, personal safety, crime and corruption reduction, but also with the presence of altruistic behaviour. Serbia is notorious for its brain drain (Tung & Lazarova 2006: 1853-1870 and it is likely that these adolescents belong to a potential next generation of highly educated migrants to countries with a regulated social system and better social policy. Preferable goals within the group of sport followers reveal importance of maintaining territorial integrity of the country by preserving tradition and strengthening military forces. Although sport orientation can be considered as a protective factor related to positive developmental outcomes (Eccles & Barber 1999: 10-41;Yin, Katimas & Zapata 1999: 183) it can also be related to the fact that success of sport players often has an important role in social construction of national identity (Jackson & Ponic 2001: 43-59). It is plausible to assume that adolescents interested in sport use sports manifestations, national athletes and their success for strengthening their national identity. Social goals connected with strong national identity are already extracted in previous youth research in Serbia as a negative dimension of values system (Kuzmanović & Petrović 2007: 579). These values are associated with choosing radical political orientation and strong religious identity (Kuzmanović & Petrović 2008: 167, 2010, which is usually interpreted as a consequence of war conflicts and unsolved problem of Serbia's territorial integrity. Besides, students interested in sport value popularity, which is understandable having in mind that athletes frequently are their role models (Lin & Lin 2007: 579;Stepanović, Pavlović Babić & Krnjaić 2009: 407-408).
Submissiveness most differentiates students orientated towards rather passive entertainment activities from those not inclined to that pattern. This appreciation may be explained by frequent exposure of these adolescents to entertainment in the media and content that does not promote a critical attitude (Verma & Larson 2002: 180). The goals of these young people at first sight seem to be quite an extraordinary mixture, ranging from religious and healthy life, acceptance through love and popularity glorification, and ending with highlighting the significance of joining the EU. However, this values mixture may be understandable when it comes to the content these young people follow in the media (folk music, celebrities, reality shows etc.) This interpretation is in accordance with Zhang and Harwood's (2004: 5) finding regarding coexistence of traditional and modern values in dominant themes in the media. Namely, in mass media the common themes are related to the looks and appearance of singers and actors and their love life. Very popular folk singers often present themselves as people who fulfil socially desirable norms with high moral and religious standards, and who strive for love and have a life without vices. Therefore, it is not surprising that their fans also consider themselves as devoted to religion, healthy life and finding real love. Such influence of the media and superstars on people's conscience and values was some time ago considered by Roberts (1997: 6) but also discussed in role model studies (Engle & Kasser 2005: 264;Yancey, Siegel, & McDaniel 2002: 36). Similarly, taking into consideration life style and interests of these adolescents, the reasons for supporting the EU accession are probably not connected with free trade, human rights and similar values, but with their belief that the EU means carefree and luxurious life style, presented in the media as typical for their show-biz idols.
Unlike previous group of adolescents who are rather passive, we identified adolescents who spend leisure time actively searching for fun. They visit a variety of places: clubs, discos, cafés, DJ events, concerts of different types of music (Table 1). Their orientation towards different types of amusement seems to be in accordance with the carpe diemlife motto expressed in the inclination towards postmodern values and appreciation of exciting life, popularity and hedonism in general.

POLITICAL THOUGHT
Adolescents who spend time listening to music and in front of computers are dominantly oriented towards fun also. They spend time listening to music, watching movies and playing games on computers (Table 1). Their goals again show a mixture of modern and postmodern values. Reputation, achievement and civic engagement reflect modern values (Hoffer et al. 2007: 18-19), while hedonism and excitement correspond to postmodern values (A'gulia et al. 2008: 276) same as in students orientated to active amusement.
Besides discussing the results based on findings obtained by statistical analysis and showing that each leisure pattern could be characterised by a specific set of values which differentiates youngsters inclining to it from those who do not spend their free time in that way, it is possible to go a step further. In our opinion it is also plausible to analyse similarities and differences regarding values related to different leisure patterns. In terms of similarities in values between young people inclined to different leisure patterns, some mutual values can be identified. Three postmodern values were identified as common for at least two different leisure patterns: excitement (present in academic, going-out and music & computer patterns), popularity (in sport, entertainment media and going-out patterns) and hedonism (in going-out and music & computer patterns).
The differences between identified patterns are based on a specific mixture of materialistic and post-materialistic values within each of them. Post-materialistic values (good inter-ethnic and humane relationships, altruism and environmental objectives) associated with the academic activities match Stattin and Kerr's (2001: 22) concept of other-focused values which they claim are related to structured spending of leisure time. Materialistic values related to academic spare time pattern (safety, fight against crime and corruption) could be result of the previously mentioned social context in Serbia marked with economic crisis and society in transition. Sport free time pattern is predominantly linked with social materialistic values usually associated with nationalism and militarism. Fun pattern consisted of activities oriented towards following the media is mostly in touch with personal post-materialistic as well as traditional values. The established connection between this pattern and post-materialistic values is in accordance with findings of Hoffer and associates (Hoffer et al. 2007:18), stating that students with wellbeing value orientation favour fun over learning. The going-out pattern includes values linked with previously analysed patterns. Spending time in this manner is entirely associated with post-materialistic values (excitement, popularity, hedonism) which are also related to other leisure patterns. Unlike previous two patterns orientated towards fun, the fun pattern consisted of activities which presuppose usage of computers for entertainment is connected with values of wellbeing (hedonism, excitement, friendship) as well as achievement values.

Conclusions
This study represents a rare attempt at determining the relationship between two significant segments of young people's lives: the way they spend their spare time and the values they appreciate. The results of the survey have brought additional insight into studies of leisure as well as into studies of young people's values. Regardless of the fact that the preferred values are in accordance with universal characteristics of adolescent age, our results do reveal some specificity of growing up in a post-socialistic country with a prolonged economic crisis manifesting itself in valuing goals reflecting the need for safety: employment, higher living standard and reducing crime and corruption rate. When the preferences related to personal and social values are observed from the perspective of Inglehart's theory, it can be concluded that these adolescent goals represent a mix of post-materialistic and materialistic value systems. Thus it can be argued that the long-term inter-generational shift from a system of materialistic to the one of post-materialistic values maybe did not materialise to the full extent witnin generation borne at the end of XX century (Inglehart & Abramson 1994: 347). The reason for that could be found in the absence of physical and economic safety of our respondents during their childhood in the context of social crises and war conflicts in Serbia. Furthermore, this mixture of values is in accordance with some authors (Arts & Halman 2004: 28-29) who argue that Inglehart's theory should be POLITICAL THOUGHT revised because even in developed European countries majority of people appreciate both modern and postmodern values, instead of a predicted increase in postmodern values.
The main conclusion of our study is that the inclination towards a particular leisure pattern during spare time presupposes preference of specific values different from those in students who do not spend their time in the same way. Moreover, some additional interesting insights emerged from comparing values appreciated by youngsters prone to different leisure patterns.
This research can be seen as a first step in linking the domains of leisure and values. From that perspective, our interpretations of established relations should be treated as future hypotheses which need to be confirmed through further empirical investigations which we intend to do with so called iGen generation of adolescents. Various combinations of materialistic and post-materialistic values within different leisure patterns justifies investigating the relationships between individual values and the manner of spending spare time, instead of opting for differences in wider value patterns, which has been the case up to now (Hoffer et al. 2007: 20-27;Stattin & Kerr 2001: 22-57). Further research could go in the direction of finding the answer to the question of whether the value orientation of adolescents changes depending on them organising their spare time in a particular fashion or whether it is more likely that adolescents because of their value orientation choose to spend their spare time in a specific way.