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Working for a dream and living for the future: Leisure constraints and negotiation strategies among Chinese international graduate students

Abstract The goal of this study was to investigate the meanings behind leisure constraints experienced by Chinese international graduate students and the negotiation efforts that they had adopted. The study was based on 16 semi‐structured conversational interviews with Chinese graduate students attending the University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign in the academic year of 2003/2004. The constraints negotiation framework proposed by Jackson et al. (1993) was employed in this study to analyze negotiation of constraints in leisure and non‐leisure aspects of life and on behavioural and cognitive levels. The interviews revealed that participants experienced a number of constraints on leisure, including lack of time, language barrier and cultural differences, lack of friends, and feelings of lack of entitlement to leisure. Their constraints negotiation strategies were mostly of cognitive nature and involved devaluing the importance of leisure and, at the same time, highlighting the importance of work and study, seeking positive aspects of life, as well as framing their situation as temporary and focusing on the future. Their behavioural strategies involved mainly leisure aspects of life and included substituting recreation activities, using various time management strategies, learning English, maintaining long‐distance relationship with home communities, and pursuing mainly Chinese pastimes within the confines of then‐ ethnic community on campus.