Family sport culture and family leisure: conceptualizing a nexus of participation

Sport often takes up a significant amount of family leisure time. While researchers explore family members’ involvement in sport and family leisure through various perspectives, one concept that remains underutilized is family sport culture. Family sport culture (FSC) is the most important predisposition for continued sport participation in adults; we propose this concept allows for a holistic understanding of the family experience with sport and sport-related leisure. The purpose of this article is to advocate for FSC usage as a concept in empirical research on family and sport. Purposive leisure is discussed and highlights how current scholarship on family leisure and youth sport has implicit connections to family sport culture. We conclude by emphasizing what family sport culture offers as a concept to leisure and sport studies, how it enhances scholars’ understanding of the meaning and impact sport has, and provide suggestions for usage in future sport and leisure research.