Data collection

During data collection, the author will first introduce the purpose of this study to the participants. The participants’ profile will be collected during the first session. This includes their ages, time spending in the diversion center, family status, education level, reasons for being in the diversion center. Marx (1988) argued that the main transference issue for at-risk youth is lack of trust for adults in authority positions. Therefore to gain the trust from these at-risk youth participants are essential before any interview in depth begins. The first and second sessions were group activities led by the author. The purpose of the activities was for the author to get to know the participants better through a relaxing atmosphere, as well as to gain the trust from the participants. One- on- one interview will only take place after the author and the participants knew and trusted each other. All the participants were notified that voice recording device will be used throughout data collecting sessions. All the participants were informed before the session that all the data will be used for this study only and not for other purposes.

Game sessions and observation:

This research used the manuscripts from the interview also author’s observation note during interview and the game sections to analyze the data. A game session was conducted before in-depth interview took place. Within the small group game session, the author was focus on letting the participants to express themselves and to share how they feel through the group activities. By sharing the same experiences, hopefully would gain trust within the group as well as to the author. A series of activities was conducted before the interview was taken. One of the activities was charade. The youth was separated into two teams. Each team was asked to write down ten different items for one person from the opponent team to act out, and the rest of the team has to guess what the item is. The person who was in charge of acting can only use body language and cannot use any voice to indicate the answer. The picture or the writing these youth drew during the game are also use as a useful data during analyze process. Observation was also used during activities as well as interview session. The author observed how

participants interacted with each other as well as how they reacted to the given instruction.

Teachers’ point of view:

The author also interviewed one social worker and one former director who worked at the diversion center, to confirm the reliability on what the juveniles said during their interview.

In-depth interviews:

Interviews use the same principle as a focus group, but subjects will be interviewed individually. The participants received one-on-one interviews with the author. During interview the author asked questions according to the interview questionnaire (see appendix.1), and left all questions as open questions for the participants to described in details. Voice recording device was used throughout all interview sessions. A word by word manuscript will be type out for future data analyze after the interview. The method be used to examine the research of participants’ leisure selections and their leisure involvement. As well as how they defined leisure and deviant leisure and their motivation of participation. Also to discover the benefits or conflict they faced within their leisure participation.

Triangulation:

Triangulation was typically a strategy (test) for improving the validity and reliability of research or evaluation of findings (Golafshani, 2003) According to Mathison (1988) :

“Triangulation has risen an important methodological issue in naturalistic and qualitative approaches to evaluation [in order to] control bias and establishing valid propositions because traditional scientific techniques are incompatible with this alternate epistemology.” (p. 13)

Therefore, game and observations, teachers’ point of view plus in-depth interview were the three methods used in order to cross over and test the validity and reliability of this

study. Details of triangulation were showed in figure. 5.

Figure 5: triangulation of this study

3.4 Ethics of the study:

The main subject of this study is ‘human’ as well as all participants are under legal age of eighteen years old and under the supervision of the rehabilitation center. Therefore, all participants’ profile and personal information were confidential and the data collect from the participants were used for the purpose of this study only. All participants for this study were chosen by the diversion center according to their level of presentation and their willingness to participant in this study. Explanation of the study was given to all participants before any of the activity or interview took place. A consent form was given and signed to protect and respect the participants.

Games and Observation

In-depth interview

Teachers’

point of view

Chapter 4

THE UNDERSTANDING OF LEISURE

This chapter analyzed the manuscripts from the interviews and tried to understand juveniles’ understanding of leisure. This chapter will be separated into 2 different sections. The first section will try to explain juveniles’ concept of leisure activities. The section will explain the leisure choices and deviant leisure activities for at-risk youths.

10 out of the 11 cases were been asked about their own understanding and general knowledge of what leisure means to them. A1 thinks that leisure is painting, riding bicycle and listening to music. B1 thinks leisure activities are doing something relaxing and make himself feel relaxed. C1 says leisure activities are playing computer, doing sports, swimming, but he also asked if smoking is thought of as a leisure activity. He continued and said if smoking is considered a leisure activity, besides smoking, chewing betel nuts, drinking alcohol, chatting with friends and singing in KTV are all considered leisure. He also said that he thinks driving is his leisure, too.D1 thinks playing basketball, reading, writing and hanging out with friends are what he thinks leisure is.

E1 says what leisure means depends on different people, for him leisure is reading and singing or playing sports like baseball. He played most of the sports apart from upper class sports like golf. G1 thinks leisure is listening to music, watching television and playing musical instruments. H1 says leisure is something you are interested in. I1 says he does not know what it is, and later he says maybe going to the night market is what he thinks leisure is. J1 thinks leisure means not going to school. As for him, hanging out with friends, playing computer in internet café and smoking is leisure. K1 says leisure is sports, billiards, table tennis or listening to music.

我會覺得，畫畫。還有騎單車，聽音樂。...應該沒了吧。(A1) 休閒活動喔...就做比較輕鬆的事吧!(B1)

我覺得休閒活動是開車吧(C1)

看書，寫字阿...打籃球那些。就是，跟朋友出去玩這樣。(D1)

休閒活動我覺得，看人吧。看我喔。就是靜態的就是看書阿。我喜歡看書。

我也愛唱歌阿。就是比較靜態的。或是打球阿，打棒球阿。打棒球比較少阿。

其實什麽球類我幾乎都有碰過啦。除了比較高階的像什麽高爾夫之類的。(E1) 休閒活動...彈吉他阿，唱歌阿。跑步。(F1)

運動類吧。球類，或是撞球，桌球。或是聽音樂。(K1) 看電視，然後聽音樂。玩樂器，就這樣嗎？(G1)

就興趣吧! (H1)

不知道，就逛夜市 (I1)

From the manual script above we can see that most of the youth did not consider the deviant activities they participated in as ‘leisure’. Their concept of leisure is very similar to the general public. Sports and music are what most of them agree what leisure is. Therefore, even they do not participate in these activities, they still think that leisure is something positive and have good effects on individuals.

However, Out of the 11 youths, only two considered what they did in their daily life as leisure.

哈哈哈，那抽菸，吃檳榔，聊天，喝酒。然後唱歌阿。喝酒是還好，是去 KTV 才會喝酒。檳榔是冬天冷的時候才吃。菸是每天都在那邊抽。

然後還有就騎摩托車，開車阿，逛街阿。(C1)

就沒有去讀書吧。還有...陪朋友。還有在網咖裡打電腦，抽香菸(J1)

Interestingly, three juveniles identified and thought that the activities they participated in were “wrong”. A1 actually thinks that he stole other people’s motorbike and it was wrong. However, he thinks that smoking drinking and chewing betel nuts are

not consider bad, it is just the law restricted them not to do so. As for D1, he first said leisure is reading, writing and playing basketball. He followed and said that he thought leisure was ‘doing things that break the law’ or what else.

就是覺得....偷摩托車就是變壞的。然後我是覺得吸菸不算是變壞，只是政 府規定，幾歲幾歲不能吸菸。嗯...還有喝酒吧。 (A1)

如果出去…就做違法的事阿。阿不然咧？(D1) 就學壞阿就偷東西阿。(H1)

In summarizing this section, whether the “leisure activity” is deviant or not, the concept of leisure still remains as activities that are positive and have the effect to enrich individual’s life. Even for juveniles, when they think of leisure they would think of something which has positive effects on them. Only a few cases would consider their leisure activities deviant or wrong.

4.2 The choices of leisure for at-risk youth

This section will discuss the choice of leisure for juveniles. The factors that influenced how these choices had been made will also be discussed in the latter part of the section. It was difficult for the juveniles to define what deviant leisure is to them.

Therefore, this will be analyzed from the activities they participate in. There are several activities that the juveniles often choose to do during their free time or the time out of school (or not going to school at all). These activities are including going to internet café, gang fights, drug use, robbery, alcohol abuse, smoking, and going to or joining the temple fair and acting as Ba Chia Chiang⁶.

6 temple fair and Ba Chia Chiang⁶(廟會活動與八家將)

Figure 6: leisure choices among at-risk youth

4.2.1 Going to internet café

According to the statistics analyzed by the judicial yuan (2000) showed 33.36 % of juveniles liked to spend their time in arcade game shop and internet café. During the interviews, the author also found that the most popular leisure activity among these juveniles was going to internet café. Playing online games, chatting online and hanging out with friends in the internet café are what most of them did in the internet café.

A1 started to go to an internet café after his mother passed away and he spent a lot of time in internet playing online game and chatting with his friends on the internet.

就媽媽過世之後，我就會一直...上網咖，認識一些網友。就去外面，在外面 過夜。這樣。(A1)

When the author asked what they normally do after school or in their free time before they came to the diversion. B1, G1 and H1 said that they spent most of their time in the internet café.

at-risk youth

robbery

smokring

gang fights

drug use Temple fair

(Ba chia chiang ) Alcohol

abuse internet

cafe

之前還沒有來的時候，沒有去上課或工作的時候喔，一定都是去打網咖阿。

(B1)

打網咖阿。幾乎每天都在打網咖阿。 (G1)

最多時間就是去打網咖，只要沒事幾乎就都是去打網咖。(H1)

A1 also said because his legs and eyes had been injuried. Therefore, he could not walk properly. Most of the youth did not want to be his friends and internet was his only way to make friends. He thinks it was easier to make friends on the internet and his friends from the internet are less judgmental,

他們都會笑我，說 因為我的腳歪歪的，他們就取笑我說怪咖。不然就是我 的眼睛，怪怪的，他們就笑我說，如果他們叫我，我看他的話，他就會說 我幹嘛瞪他這樣。可是叫我去偷車的，那個是網友，我從國一升到現在我 都沒有一個朋友。網友可能因為看不到吧，就比較不會批評我。也不是說 很...不會說ㄟ。總之就，我比較喜歡網友。比較喜歡認識網友。因為網友可 以認識很多不同地方，例如像跑最遠的有...墾丁吧! (A1)

Internet café itself may not be a deviant environment; however, from the manual script the author found out that these youths often use an internet café as a place to append a social time with others as well as their meeting place.

For B1 he split his friends into two categories and he identified that his ‘bad friends’

are the ones that hung around in the internet café, because of their misbehavior.

我的朋友有分兩群啦，一群是好的，一群是壞的。好的就是有上學的那一 群，壞的就是都泡網咖。 因為他們都在那邊胡作非為。(B1)

G1 and I1 said that internet café was their meeting place when they escaped from school or a place to hang out with their friends.

有時候翹課，可是大約都是約到網咖。然後再看要去做什麽。 (G1)

就是檳榔攤，然後有喝飲料的店，裡面有網咖，網咖裡面有那個算休息的 地方吧。就一直在那邊。(I1)

The descriptions above may not define that going to internet café as a deviant activity. However, internet café also provided these youths with a secure environment to escape from their families or schools and also a place for them to be able to smoke.

Both C1 and J1 said that when they were in the internet café, playing computer was not their only activity. Often smoking was involved.

像如果在在網咖阿，都是抽菸。(C1)

最常做的就是在網咖打電腦，抽香菸。 (J1)

As for A1 and K1 internet café also provided them with a place for them to escape from their families. A1 said that internet café was a place for them to relax. As for K1, he did not like to stay with his relatives and going to internet café was one of the places that he would go when he ran away from home.

比起在家裡都常常被罵，然後就是笑。欺負我。我都一直忍一直忍。阿忍到 時間到，我就告訴自己，又可以去放鬆了。(A1)

K1 said that he did not like to stay in his aunt’s home and normally he would stay in internet café overnight.

我就不喜歡住在姑姑家阿，就都去網咖。我通常喔，通常都待到隔天。(K1) Also, for some juveniles like H1 and K1, going to internet café might not only be a leisure but addiction. For they would use the money they stole just to go to internet café.

那時候偷來的錢都拿去打網咖比較多。不是打網咖的話，就是拿去吃東西，

買菸，買酒。(H1)

偷東西喔，是為了錢阿。因為要去網咖。因為我整天都迷在網咖。後來我 就上癮了。可是沒有錢，所以就去偷。就是有時候我會把哥哥給我的錢放 在另外一邊。然後我就拿偷的錢去打網咖。有時候錢不夠我還會在用哥哥

的錢。雖然會被警察追，但是就會想說偷完錢之後，就可以去網咖了。這 樣子。(K1)

In conclusion, internet café became not only a venue for juveniles to hang out with, but also a place they escape to. It also gave them a space to participate deviant activities that they are not allow to do such as smoking. Most of them do not have good interpersonal relationship with others, which makes them harder to make friends in school or with their peers. The ‘unreal’ internet world becomes a safety blanket for them.

Under this environment they will not be judged by others and even society. It creates a secure space for them to make friends without any judgment, and also internet might be the only place that they could be themselves and make friends with others.

Internet café also provides functions such as socialization or relaxation for just like other leisure activities. If juveniles only go to internet café to use the computer to play

Internet café also provides functions such as socialization or relaxation for just like other leisure activities. If juveniles only go to internet café to use the computer to play