NEA on Arts Participation: 3 out of 4 Americans Participate in the Arts
(2-28-2011) For nearly three decades, the periodic Survey of Public Participation in the Arts has focused primarily on live attendance at "benchmark" arts activities which are defined as live attendance at jazz or classical music concerts, opera, plays, ballet, or visits to art museums or galleries. Although attendance rates have declined or held flat for these activities, this depiction of arts participation habits is incomplete. Going forward, the NEA will measure and analyze a fuller spectrum of artistic genres, arts participation via electronic media, and personal arts creation.
To launch this expanded conversation, the NEA invited Nick Rabkin and E.C. Hedberg of NORC, University of Chicago; Mark J. Stern of the University of Pennsylvania; and Jennifer L. Novak-Leonard and Alan S. Brown of the research firm WolfBrown to mine the SPPA data. Their findings are offered in three, newly released reports that also confirm the importance of arts education, argue for a more expansive system to measure arts participation, and challenge the notion of the "graying" of arts audiences.
The three new NEA research reports are:
- Arts Education in America: What the declines mean for arts participation by Nick Rabkin and E.C. Hedberg
- Beyond Attendance: A multi-modal understanding of arts participation by Jennifer L. Novak-Leonard and Alan S. Brown
- Age and Arts Participation: A case against demographic destiny by Mark J. Stern