Ongoing Research
Cultural Infrastructure
Humanities Indicators
Teaching Artists
Cultural Infrastructure
The Cultural Policy Center's largest continuing project is the research funded by the Kresge, Mellon, and MacArthur foundations on "Cultural Infrastructure in the United States," a national study of the organizational decisions behind, implementation strategies for, and consequences of the building boom in museums, theaters, and performing arts centers in the U.S. between 1994 and 2008. It is the first comprehensive analysis of cultural building in the United States to be carried out at this scale and depth.
The first phase of this three-year project was completed in June 2009, which involved compilation of a database and a taxonomy of projects, and selection of 50 project sites for more detailed study. Phase Two of the project includes interviews with the executive directors of the 50 organizations selected in the sample and collection and compilation of extensive supplemental data on these organizations. Phase Three is the development of four representative case studies of building projects launched since 2006. Both Phase Two and Three will provide a more detailed and contextualized understanding of the impact of such infrastructure projects on the cultural organizations themselves. In order to study the spill-over effects of big building projects, Phase Four involves conducting a community survey in cities where a large building project took place. We have interviewed approximately 40-60 directors of organizations in 13 cities.
The research team for this project includes Norman Bradburn and Carroll Joynes at the Cultural Policy Center, Bruce Seaman at Georgia State University, Robert Gertner at the University of Chicago, Peter Frumkin at the University of Texas, Joanna Woronkowicz at NORC and the University of Chicago, and Anastasia Kolendo at the University of Texas.
Carroll Joynes and the CPC's cultural infrastructure research were featured in a December 2009 article in the New York Times examining cultural institutions that overbuilt during the boom years.
Humanities Indicators
This project, under the direction of Norman Bradburn, establishes a framework for the compilation, analysis, and publication of comprehensive trend data about the humanities. Humanities indicators will equip researchers and policymakers, universities, foundations, museums, libraries, and other public humanities institutions with better statistical tools for accurately describing the number and type of academic degrees granted, the employment histories of graduates in the humanities, the levels of funding in these programs, and the degree of public awareness of issues relating to the humanities. The goal of the project is to provide useful information on the humanities that is equivalent in scale and accuracy to the information on the sciences produced biennially by the National Science Foundation (under the auspices of the National Science Board). Although the National Endowment for the Humanities has had authorization since 1985 to support the production of similar kinds of data, it has not launched such an undertaking, and Congress has never appropriated the funding for such an effort. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences-sponsored Humanities Indicators project, funded by the Mellon Foundation, therefore fills a significant gap in the cultural data collection field.
For more information please visit the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Humanities Indicators webpage.
Teaching Artists
The Teaching Artists project, under the direction of NORC Senior Fellow and CPC Research Affiliate, Nick Rabkin, explores the increasing prevalence of active artists working as teachers in schools and community centers. The first two phases of the study involved organizing a research team and preparing a survey instrument. Grants from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, James Irvine Foundation, Heller Foundation, Rhode Island Foundation, Walther and Elise Haas Fund, the San Francisco Foundation, and the J.P. Morgan Chase Foundation will support a broad census of teaching artists and program administrators in California urban, suburban, and rural areas, and will provide information about the background and training of teaching artists and the character of the institutions in which they work. A third phase of the study will involve interviews with a sample of the survey participants and with key informants in each of the California communities in order to determine the factors that support or impede the work of teaching artists in various settings.