Author: Stallings, Stephanie, Mauldin, Bronwyn

Publication Year: 2016

Media Type: Report

Summary:

Do all Americans have equal access to the arts? Are the arts accessible and inclusive for all communities? National rates of arts participation as measured by attendance at live benchmark events have been trending down for the past few decades.1 Consequently, a narrative of arts decline in the US has been largely accepted, even as some accounts show cultural engagement experiencing a renaissance enabled by advanced communication technologies and changing demographics (Wali et al., 2002; Alvarez, 2005; Brown, Novak & Kitchener, 2008; Novak-Leonard et al., 2015).  

This report, informed by a review of practitioner and academic literature, charts the concerns of arts stakeholders surrounding public arts engagement since about 2000, beginning with the discovery of a statistically significant decline in benchmark attendance as observed in the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA). It also traces the role of the “informal arts” (folk, traditional and avocational arts) in broadening the definition of arts and cultural participation.  

Abstract:

Arts & Intersections: Civic Dialogue, Community Development

Categories: Civic Dialogue and Social Change