Groups built around cultural experiences score highest on trust and tolerance.
Research into how different formations of people in associations work reveals that cultural groups scored highest on trust and second-highest on optimism and tolerance.
Research into how different formations of people in associations work reveals that cultural groups scored highest on trust and second-highest on optimism and tolerance.
Children from immigrant and resident populations cohere best when barriers around language come down. Research shows that art making provides a common bridge and increases friendship, empathy, and mutual trust.
Participation in arts activities increases tolerance. 12th graders who participate in the arts are 40% more likely to have friends from different racial groups and 29% less likely to feel that it is ok to make a racist remark.
Arts activities increase residents’ interest in getting involved in local issues and projects, including discussions of infrastructure. 86% of participants want to be involved in future projects and people living where projects occurred were more than twice as likely to be civically engaged as those whose blocks did not have projects.
The arts drive trust, and trust drives community satisfaction. Levels of civic engagement predict the quality of community life and residents' happiness better than education or income. In the communities with the highest trust, 52% gave their community a top rating as a place to live; in the communities with the lowest levels of social trust, only 31% felt positively.