Rethinking children's right to leisure during school holidays

Leisure and health are human rights that apply to both children and adults. Leisure can enhance health and enable people to participate fully in leisure activities. One of children's main opportunities for leisure is during school holidays. Little previous research has focused on this time in children's lives. This paper presents a review of the literature surrounding school holidays, providing a critique of educational and public health approaches that focus narrowly on children's future outcomes that may be associated with how they spend their time during these leisure periods. It argues that a more sociological understanding, rooted within child-centred approaches to leisure, provides the opportunity for children's agency, participation and citizenship to be investigated more fully.