Program design and activity selection

Risk and risk-taking are complex, culturally determined constructs with positive and negative connotations (Brymer 2010a). What one culture or individual considers risk another will consider normal. For this chapter we define risk as subjective perceptions of challenging events that include uncertainty, dangers and hazards. Most often, risk is portrayed as physically oriented dangers but they might also relate to psychological, emotional, social and spiritual hazards. From this perspective, risk-taking is the active search for experiences that might be perceived as dangerous or hazardous (Madge & Barker 2007), but still has the potential for gain. Risk-taking is a universal dimension of human experience, arising throughout all stages of life (Madge & Barker 2007). It is a pervasive quality of all human activity, whether it is the first baby steps taken and losing your balance, or riding a two-wheeled bike after detaching the training wheels. Risk is unavoidable as we negotiate the day-to-day activities within our learning landscape, especially if we seek to transcend our accustomed limits or stretch our abilities. The experience of risk-taking is contradictory. On the one hand, it is saturated with potential danger, misfortune, ambiguity, adversity and even despair, but on the other hand it is also filled with opportunity for growth, jubilation, rapture, exhilaration and increased mastery.