Appalachian Center for Crafts Study (1980-1981)

Investigators: Maurice Ethridge and Jerome Neapolitan, Appalachian Center for Crafts

Population: Craftpersons

Identification method: Participants in Appalachian Center’s programs (which began in 1979), and persons on the Center’s mailing list.

Sample procedure: Population identified from two sources: a list of all artists that had participated in one or more of the Appalachian Center’s programs (which began in 1979), and a sample of other artist’s on the Center’s mailing list.

N and Response rate: 40 percent (101) for participants and 26 percent from non-participant (96) mailing list.

Publication: Ethridge, F.M. and J. Neapolitan. 1985. "Amateur Craft-Artists: Marginal Leisure Roles in a Marginal Art World." Sociological Spectrum, 5(1-2): 53-76.

Summary: Amateurism is an important but marginal leisure role, in which the boundaries between work and leisure are blurred. Robert A. Stebbins's conceptualization of amateurism was used as a model to analyze data. As a self-identified category of craft-artists, amateurs were found to be statistically marginal between professionals and dabblers.