{"id":4170,"date":"2015-06-17T00:05:03","date_gmt":"2015-06-17T04:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/?p=4170"},"modified":"2015-06-17T00:05:03","modified_gmt":"2015-06-17T04:05:03","slug":"they-just-dont-wanna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2015\/06\/they-just-dont-wanna\/","title":{"rendered":"They Just Don’t Wanna?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SpoonOutOfPlace\"Createquity’s May 6 post Why Don’t They Come?<\/a> was a thoroughly researched piece on barriers to arts participation. It addressed the question of why:<\/p>\n

People with lower incomes and less education (low-SES) participate at lower rates [than others] in a huge range of activities, including not just classical music concerts and plays, but also less \u201celitist\u201d forms of engagement like going to the movies, dancing socially, and even attending sporting events.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have great respect for researchers. I sometimes say that “some of my best friends are researchers.” But I’ll confess I did not get a “passion for research” gene myself. So I’m deeply grateful when people who are good at it investigate issues that are important to me and to my work.<\/p>\n

Before I begin to comment on what’s included in the piece, let me acknowledge a profound sense of unease in discussing the mind and motivation of people who are described in the report as low-SES (socio-economic status). This tends to make me feel a bit like an anthropologist observing an exotic tribe. These are simply fellow citizens with less education, money, and, therefore, far fewer advantages than I.<\/p>\n

With that concession to my discomfort, let me grossly oversimplify a few of the report’s observations. It finds that lack of time and money are not as significant as some might think. That is both surprising and heartening. Expense was, however, still cited by a significant percentage (45%) of those surveyed as a deterrent to participation.<\/p>\n

The report has a speculation that “(Maybe) They’re Just Not Into You.” Higher percentages of this group watch television than groups with more education or income.<\/p>\n

The truth is that we don\u2019t know much about why low-SES people make the choices they do about how to spend their free time. Are they watching television because they truly enjoy it and happen to find it more fulfilling than going out to a concert, a museum, or a movie theater? Or are they doing so as a reluctant concession to circumstance, with TV being the only art form they can afford to consume (or the only one they don\u2019t have to schedule in advance)? Or perhaps something in between \u2013 a \u201clearned\u201d and socially reinforced preference that has as much to do with identity as anything specific to the experience itself?<\/em><\/p>\n

There is another possibility, although it’s potentially related to the last cited in the report\u2013a “learned” or socially reinforced preference. My friend Nina Simon (yes, this is two posts in a row where I’m leaning on her) recently revisited Threshold Fear<\/a>: “the sense of discomfort upon walking into an unfamiliar and potentially threatening space.” Unfamiliarity with an exotic venue creates a profound sense of inertia when considering the possibility of doing something new. The belief that they would be unwelcome or feel out of place may have a good deal to do with the results found in this research.<\/p>\n

The report concludes that time and financial constraints are less significant than we might believe intuitively. If, instead, threshold fear is a factor\u2013and my entirely unresearched gut tells me it may be\u2013devising ways to effectively invite and truly welcome newcomers may be of more importance than “simply” finding means to lower barriers of cost or time commitment.<\/p>\n

Engage!<\/p>\n

Doug<\/p>\n

\n
Photo:\"Attribution\"\"Noncommercial\"<\/a><\/span> Some rights reserved<\/a> by JonathanCohen<\/a><\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barriers to participation: time, money, interest, or feeling out of place?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"They Just Don't Wanna? @createquity Nonparticipation for lack of time, money, or interest? http:\/\/wp.me\/p1G6h9-15g","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,10],"tags":[12,13,42,47,27,39],"class_list":["post-4170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-principles","category-the-practice-of-engagement","tag-arts","tag-community-engagement","tag-diversity","tag-equity","tag-marketing","tag-relationships","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1G6h9-15g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/SpoonOutOfPlace-e1431460435923.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4170"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4188,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4170\/revisions\/4188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}