Trends in Arts Participation

Paul DiMaggio, Director of Research, CACPS; Professor of Sociology
Toqir Mukhtar, Research Project Director
Steven Tepper, Deputy Director, Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies

The Center is working on a study that explores trends in public participation in the arts. Using three years of data from the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (1982, 1992, 2002), DiMaggio et al. will explore patterns of cohort change in public participation in the arts. Do younger cohorts attend ballet, musicals, drama, opera, classical music concerts, and art museums more or less than older cohorts?

In addition, the project examines whether the role of the arts as "cultural capital" has diminished over time; whether the gender division of cultural labor has declined; and the extent to which trends have been influenced by change in age of marriage, age of child-bearing and the proportion of single-parent families. To help answer these questions, we will analyze cohort trends for disaggregated groups including men, women and college educated. We will also examine cohort trends in childhood experiences in the arts.