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NEA: The Arts and Civic Engagement

Dana Gioia is Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. What follows is the preface to their recent study, "The Arts and Civic Engagement: Involved in Arts, Involved in Life."

This study (PDF)may contain the most widely useful data of any recent NEA report. The Arts and Civic Engagement demonstrates—with statistically reliable data—that arts participation overwhelmingly correlates with positive individual and civic behaviors. Put simply, Americans who read books, visit museums, attend theater, and engage in other arts are more active in community life than those who do not.

The results of this study surprised us at the Arts Endowment. While we were confident that arts participation contributed to civic engagement, we were astonished at the huge margins of difference between arts participants and non-participants. Arts participants, especially readers, engage in positive civic and individual activities—from exercise to charity work, from hiking to amateur sports league attendance—at strikingly higher rates than nonparticipants.

It is not necessarily obvious that a novel reader or classical music listener would be more likely to exercise or play sports; yet the data are unambiguously clear that they do. Arts participants are measurably different from non-participants—more active, more involved, and more socially engaged.

What accounts for these differences? It is impossible to offer explanations with the same statistical authority with which we measure the participation rates, but I can venture a highly plausible hypothesis.

Something happens when an individual actively engages in the arts—be it reading a novel at home, attending a concert at a local church, or seeing a dance company perform at a college campus—that awakens both a heightened sense of identity and civic awareness. We must banish the stereotype that reading books or listening to music is passive behavior. Art is not escapism but an invitation to activism.

The one alarming note in this study is that arts participation is falling among younger adults and with it most forms of civic and social engagement. Once again we cannot offer any statistically reliable proof of causation for these trends, but it is reasonable to speculate that the proliferation of electronic entertainment options offered to young adults has drawn them away from traditional forms of civic and social involvement.

The Arts and Civic Engagement is a study of vital importance to every arts organization in America. For the first time, artists, arts advocates, and educators have the means to communicate—in empirical terms—the far-reaching benefits of participating in the arts. Healthy communities depend on active citizens. The arts play an irreplaceable role in producing both those citizens and communities.

Read the study here (PDF).