March 2, 2010 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Woodlawn Room, Harris School of Public Policy Studies
Nick Rabkin, NORC Senior Research Scientist
This presentation looked at new research from another of the five competitive NEA research grants to examine and interpret data from the 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts and previous SPPA surveys (1982, 1992, 2002). The surveys have shown that arts participation among adults has declined in all categories since 1982. Rabkin’s project on “Arts Learning and Arts Participation” has found that education in the arts (both past and current)has a powerful influence on adult arts participation, and may be the most promising strategy for reversing or mitigating the decline, but that there are disturbing signs that arts education is declining as well.