An assessment of enhancing self-concept through selected recreational interventions for youth in low income black housing areas in Knoxville, Tennessee

Recreation is a health-related discipline. It facilitates individuals with special needs that my limit their involvement in appropriate recreation and social activities. One characteristic of recreation is the diversity of its expression. Recreation may be many things to many people. It may be considered as re-creating the emotional expressions, the socialization skills, the physical participation and the creativity expression of an individual which are the essentials for healthy adjustment in life.

The purpose of this study was to assess the value of selected recreation activities on enhancing the self-concept of youth living in a federally subsidized housing area in Knoxville, Tennessee. The research design and methodology included the administration of the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale, on a pre-test, post-test basis to 7 subjects in an Experimental group and to 8 subjects in a Control group. The subjects in the Experimental group were given a three week treatment program consisting of selected recreation activities for 1-1/2 hours a day Monday through Friday. The Wilcoxon Matched-Pair Signed-Rank Test and the Mann-Whitney U Test were used to analyze the data.

Based upon the results of the statistical analysis of the data the hypothesis that, there would be a significant difference in the level of self-concept in youth living in a low-income housing unit who were involved in selected recreation activities and those who were not was rejected. Several recommendations were given based upon the results of this study: (1) the study should be replicated including females as subjects, (2) the treatment program should be longer than three weeks, (3) the number of subjects should be increased to at least 20, (4) the subjects in the control group should be restricted from participating in recreational activities during the treatment phase, and (5) future studies should focus only on sports activities to assess their impact on self-concept.