From the Field

U.S. Patterns of Arts Participation

The 2017 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts is now available from the National Endowment for the Arts. The release includes a report, U.S. Patterns of Arts Participation, that presents top‐line statistics about U.S. adults’ participation in arts activities and analyzes patterns of participation by different types of art. The report also describes the demographics of arts participants and contains detailed participation data for visual arts, music, dance, theatre and literary activity. According to the survey, more than half of U.S. adults attend an arts and cultural event at least once a year, and young adults are twice as likely to create or perform art as all adults.

In addition to the report, the Arts Endowment has released a series of resources on state level estimates of arts participation. An interactive map allows users to see the share of U.S. adults who engaged in various arts activities by state. Seven research briefs reveal state rankings by specific cultural activities. While state rankings can be useful benchmarks, the article Why It Is Difficult to Rank State Levels of Arts Participation explains why these rankings should be used with caution. As always, raw survey data for states and metropolitan areas are also available.

Equity in Education

The National Equity Project’s (NEP) goal is to improve educational experiences, outcomes, and life options for underserved students and families to achieve equity in education. NEP develops leaders to achieve equitable transformations with six commitments leaders should make in their organizations and systems. The commitments include intending to be an equitable organization, developing shared language and understanding of the history of inequities, fostering radical collaboration, promoting transparency in communications and decision making, acknowledging power dynamics to mitigate harm, and practicing inquiry and ongoing learning.

Arts and Neighborhood Revitalization

A new research paper published in Cultural Trends will be useful for those interested in creative placemaking, community development and using the arts to drive neighborhood revitalization. The Arts, Bohemian Scenes, and Income conducts an analysis of the presence of arts organizations and community income by looking into a wide variety of neighborhoods by income, not just the most successful areas in terms of number of cultural amenities. The research, conducted by Yasemin Arikan, Terry Nichols Clark, Douglas S. Noonan and George Tolley, provides a finding that arts amenities have a positive effect on neighborhood revitalization across a variety of income, ethnic and other components. This contradicts the view that arts amenities are closely tied to already successful or wealthy places.