Evaluating a university’s investment in arts programming on student arts participation

ABSTRACT

An individual’s level of education has the strongest relationship with his or her arts participation. What is unclear, however, is why high-educated individuals are more likely to participate in the arts. Economic models indicate that price, income, and background are relevant to attendance, but the role these factors play among high-educated groups, like college students, remains underexplored. This study sheds light on what makes college students more likely to participate in the arts by evaluating a university’s investment in arts programming on campus. We analyse data from an experiment in which a university made substantial investments in arts programming largely centred on increasing access to the arts by providing more free programmes. Using pre- and post-intervention survey data, we analyse changes in students’ reported level of arts participation and barriers to arts involvement. The results from our analyses show that background, such as familiarity and experience in the arts, is the strongest predictor of increased arts participation among college students when prices are reduced.     

Minding the gap: Elucidating the disconnect between arts participation metrics and arts engagement within immigrant communities

A growing gap between national metrics of arts participation and the many, evolving ways in which people participate in artistic and aesthetic activities limits the degree to which such data can usefully inform policy decisions. The National Endowment for the Arts’ Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA) is the primary source of arts participation data in the USA, but this instrument inadequately evaluates how members of minority and immigrant communities participate in the arts. As the USA nears a historic demographic shift to being a majority–minority nation – non-Hispanic White individuals will no longer be a demographic majority by about 2041 – obtaining more accurate measures of artistic activities that are meaningful to a more diverse population will be of increasing importance for public policy-making. To better understand the extent to which the SPPA's questions capture the range of artistic activities engaged in by members of immigrant communities, we cognitively tested a subset of the survey's questions with Chinese immigrants to the USA as a pilot case. We found that interviewees participate in a range of culturally specific and non-culturally specific arts activities that they did not report in response to the survey's questions. In this article, we draw upon these interviews to discuss the reasons underpinning the gap and suggest implications for updating research tools and future research. A better understanding of the gap between measured and actual “arts participation” will lead to improved measures and information to support artistic expression and arts more reflective of contemporary society.     

Public participation in the arts in the United States: Summary of the national endowment for the arts 1997 survey

The 1997 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts examines the extent to which adult Americans throughout the US participate in the arts ‐ by attending live events and exhibitions, listening to and watching broadcast or recorded arts programmes, as well as personally performing or creating art themselves.

Respondents indicate that 35 per cent of American adults visited an art museum or gallery at least once in 1997. Other popular activities included attending ‘musical plays’ (25 per cent), non‐musical plays and classical music (both 16 per cent). Twelve per cent of the populated went to performances of jazz and dance other than ballet. Reading literature and visiting a historic park or an arts/crafts fair also had high participation rates ‐ the former, 63 per cent, and the latter two, about 47 per cent.

The chapter is divided into eight sections. The first three sections describe total participation, rates of participation, and participation by demographic group for each arts activity by types of participation: attendance at live events, participation through media, and active participation. The fourth section is devoted to socialisation, the amount of education and exposure to the arts. The fifth compares participation rates for the arts and other leisure activities. The sixth section focuses on music preferences, and the seventh on the geographical distribution of participation in the arts. The final section presents a summary and conclusions. Appendices to the report provide background and history of the survey, details of its methodology and analysis, and the questions asked in the survey.     

Costa rica international arts festival highlights chinese culture

The Republic of Costa Rica is a country. situated in the southern part of Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the east-southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east. Costa Rica means a rich and fertile coast in the Spanish language. In fact, it is one of the leading economies in Central America.     

The arts,Bohemian scenes,and income

ABSTRACT

Where and how does arts activity drive neighbourhood revitalization? We explore the impact of arts establishments on income in US zip codes, nationally and across quantiles (from four to seven subgroups) of zip codes stratified by disadvantage (based on income and ethnicity/race). We focus on what is new here: how neighbourhood scenes or the mixes of amenities mediate relationships between the arts and income. One dramatic finding is that more bohemian/hip neighbourhoods tend to have less income, contradicting the accounts from Jane Jacobs, Richard Florida and others. Arts and bohemia generate opposing effects, which emerge if we study not a few cases like Greenwich Village, but use more careful measures and larger number of cases. Some arts factors that distinctly influence neighbourhood income include the number of arts establishments; type and range of arts establishments; levels of disadvantage in a neighbourhood; and specific pre­ and co­existing neighbourhood amenities. Rock, gospel and house music appeal to distinct audiences. Our discussion connects this vitalizing role for arts activity to broader community development dynamics. These overall results challenge the view that the arts simply follow, not drive, wealth, and suggest that arts-led strategies can foster neighbourhood revitalization across a variety of income, ethnic, and other contexts.     

Theory-based evaluation and the social impact of the arts

The well-documented challenges in researching the social impacts of the arts are closely related to key issues in contemporary social research and evaluation, most particularly the problem of causal attribution. The article contends that some of the most common criticisms of the evidence base for the social impact of the arts relate to the successionist model of change which underpins positivist social science research and evaluation. Illustrating this with reference to research on the arts and quality of life, the article considers the alternative generative understanding of causation that underpins theory-based evaluation (TBE) approaches, favoured recently in the UK as part of the “What Works?” agenda. While these approaches fit well with knowledge about the determinants of arts impact, the article considers whether in fact TBE approaches offer an effective strategy for understanding how and why arts engagement can result in social change. The limitations and possibilities of TBE are considered with reference to four recent UK studies of the impact of the arts on individuals which make use of them.     

A picture of the contemporary combined arts festival landscape

The last 10–15 years has seen the rapid growth of festivals in Britain and overseas. This article examines the current situation of combined arts festivals in the UK in an effort to understand what the British festival environment looks like in the early years of the new millennium. A number of questions present themselves regarding the history and development of the current festival structure, the number of festivals, their size, distribution, audiences, geographical locations, programming content, duration, seasonality, influences, objectives, future plans and so forth. Combined arts festivals are defined as those containing more than one genre of arts, e.g., Edinburgh International Festival. Research methods include a survey questionnaire sent to 117 UK combined arts festivals (56 per cent response rate) to discern audience demographics, programming history, funding and future plans. In-depth interviews were also conducted with festival organizers. Based on survey data, it is argued that a homogeneous combined arts festival “type” is developing and replicating across the country. This argument is supported by the similarity in programming choices and festival format of a majority of the festivals surveyed. One of the main reasons for the increasing formulaic approach to festival programming and design is the increasing competition for funding as public and private funding sources expect combined arts festivals to achieve socio-economic targets and become more sustainable from one year to the next. This can be seen to be contributing to the increasing professionalism of combined arts festival organization, which has resulted in the majority of combined arts festival directors favouring “safe” content options that emulate the successes of several large, long-established festivals. Such an approach has had detrimental effects on the creativity of the arts festival landscape on the whole and may also be altering the symbolic meanings of festivals for communities and places.