Arts Participation and the Three Faces of Time

A reflection on disentangling the impact of life stage, period and socialization on arts participation, exemplified by an analysis of the US arts audience

Andries van den Broek

Arts participation bears the threefold imprint of time: people's life stage (age), their earlier socializing imprint (cohort) and the historical circumstances of the moment (period). A proper understanding of these three effects is of great importance in understanding the present and future sizes and preferences of arts audiences. Such understanding implies disentangling those three effects properly, rather than overlooking or confusing them. An example of how that might be done is presented here with regard to arts participation in the US.

Source: Abstract