The Structure of the Recreation Education in Higher Education in Turkey

By the effects of intense industrialization, technology and working conditions, how people spend their limited free time became an important issue. The importance of using leisure time effectively and efficiently has an importance and necessity for the education of recreation which can be defined as activities in which people spend their leisure time with satisfying and revitalizing doings. Recreation education, whose beginning is under the sport education, has started at faculties of tourism since 2009. This is a new field in tourism education in Turkey when it’s compared with the examples of the world. Thus, the main objective of this study is to investigate structure and current status of recreation education in higher education. For this purpose, dealing with the process of the recreational education, the present situation and the educational structure of the recreational education at higher schools in Turkey has been investigated. Also, recreation education was investigated with the structuring in undergraduate, graduate as well as tourism education and sports education. Besides, in order to put the recreation of recreation education with other disciplines, graduate theses have been investigated by the programs. According to the data obtained, it has been found out that recreation education at undergraduate level was largely performed in Higher Schools of Physical Education and Sports and the theses prepared were organized under Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences and on Landscape Architecture. This study is aimed to be a resource that manages to compile wide range of information for the future studies.