Motivations Matter

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Those who wish to understand or expand cultural participation need to pay much greater attention to its diversity. Participation in arts and cultural events is not monolithic, though it is frequently discussed and acted upon as if it were. As one observer notes, "We often talk as if the 'arts' were a single thing."¹ The fact is that people attend different types of cultural events for different reasons, with different people, in different places, with different experiences. Thus, if those seeking to enlarge participation are to succeed, they need to clearly define and understand the type of "culture" in which they wish to expand participation and target their strategies accordingly.

This is the central conclusion from a national survey of cultural participation commissioned by The Wallace Foundation and conducted by the Urban Institute. Survey findings also indicate some important differences in participation among members of different ethnic groups and among frequent, moderate, and infrequent attendees. Arts organizations wishing to reach those audiences should be aware of such differences.

Taking a broad and inclusive definition of culture, the survey asked a random sample of 1,231 Americans about their participation patterns, motivations, and experiences.² As is typical of such surveys, we asked people about their participation during the previous 12 months. The major innovation of this study was that we also asked people a set of questions about their most recently attended event: what they attended, why, where, with whom, and what experiences they had. This provided information that allowed us to link particular types of motivations, venues, and experiences to particular types of arts attendance in order to determine what people wanted from a particular kind of arts event and whether they felt the event actually delivered. The survey therefore permits us, for instance, to go beyond knowing that a desire to socialize is a common motivation for arts attendance. We can now ask whether or not a desire to socialize is common for all attendance or has greater or lesser importance for those who attend specific kinds of arts events.

The ability to do so distinguishes this survey from others, including the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts,³ that ask about participation over the course of the past 12 months but do not ask about motivations and circumstances associated with particular types of arts attendance.

The different motivations and experiences prevalent among those attending different art forms turned out to be numerous indeed. Overarching statements about "cultural participation" that fail to take the differences among events into account can therefore be very misleading. Survey findings show this is clearly not the case, with direct implications for those who study or wish to expand cultural participation. The most fundamental implication of these findings is that arts research, policy, and management need to be reoriented to pay greater attention to the diversity of cultural participation—that is, the differences in what people attend and the differing motivations, expectations, and experiences that accompany particular types of arts participation.

This survey represents a preliminary step toward demonstrating the diversity of motivations and circumstances that characterize cultural participation. We do not attempt to document the extent and nature of that diversity comprehensively. Instead, this report examines only live attendance and does not cover other modes of participation, such as production, participation through media, or reading. The evidence presented in this report indicates the pressing need for additional analyses that make diversity a central facet of examining other dimensions of participation.

Notes from this section of the report

1 Paul DiMaggio. 2002. "Taking the Measure of Culture." http://www.princeton.edu/~artspol/moc_prospectus.html. See also Kevin F. McCarthy, Elizabeth H. Ondaatje, Laura Zakaras, and Arthur Brooks. 2004. Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate about the Benefits of the Arts. Santa Monica, CA: Rand.

2 The 1,231 people represent a response rate of 45 percent.

3 The National Endowment for the Arts has conducted this, the major national survey of participation, for over National Endowment for the Arts has conducted this, the major national survey of participation, for over 20 years.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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