Social representations of leisure and free time: experiences and sociability of university young girls

The research's objective was understand the social representations of leisure and free time shared by young females students of Universidade Federal do Espirito Santo with varying age from 17 to 26. The investigation was conducted based on two free association questions, answered by 111 students, and two focus group, with other seven participants. The data analysis was based on the Theory of Social Representations, proposed by Serge Moscovici, and the Central Core Theory, described by Jean-Claude Abric. As a result we concluded that the leisure social representations is mainly associated to feelings resulting by its practice and that free time is essentially comprehended as compensatory relaxation moment. It was also observed that representations referent to the two phenomenon are equally based on the western contemporary occidental values, which tends to valorize work and study more than leisure on free time.