Ken Roberts is Professor of Sociology at the University of Liverpool, UK, and at the University of Chester, also UK. His books include Leisure (1970), Contemporary Society and the Growth of Leisure (1978), Leisure in Contemporary Society (2nd edition, 2006), Youth in Transition: Eastern Europe and the West (2009), and Class in Contemporary Britain (2nd edition, 2011), Sociology: An Introduction (2012), and The Business of Leisure: Tourism, Sports, Events and Other Leisure Industries (2015). His next book, Social Theory in Sport and Leisure will be published in 2016.

He was Chair of the World Leisure Organization’s Research Commission from 1992-1996, and edited the World Leisure Journal from 2004 to 2008, since when he has been a member of the editorial board. He is also a former President of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee on Leisure. He is a founder member and now honorary life member of the Leisure Studies Association.

His main fields of specialisation are social theory and leisure, trends in leisure in modern societies, and youth and leisure. Between 1989 and 2010 he coordinated a series of research projects in former communist countries which investigated how the lives of young people, including their leisure, were changing as part of the wider economic, political and social transformations. His current research is into youth in East and South Mediterranean countries during and since the Arab Spring of 2011, and youth in Saudi Arabia.