Plagiarism Declaration

I confirm that the enclosed written work on Arts and Effect of State Funding , is entirely my own except where explicitly stated otherwise. I declare that wherever I used copying, paraphrasing, summarizations or other appropriate mechanism related to the use of another author’s work it has been properly acknowledged in accordance with normal scholarly conventions. I understand that wherever 6 or more consecutive words are extracted from a source they must be acknowledged and 10 consecutive words that are unacknowledged will be regarded as proof of plagiarism.

Acknowledgments Special thanks and gratitude is given to —- who helped me with his valuable guidance. My thanks will be extended also to my family including Dad, Mom and —–, my youngest brother for their kind and invaluable support during the whole project. INTRODUCTION Much before the establishment and commencement of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in the year 1965, the part essayed by the government in providing adequate support to the Arts community has been a debatable one. On the other hand, during the last twenty years, the Arts community has seen a lot of support and backing from the state governments.

To state the figures, the amounts of funds allocated for the state arts agencies (SAAs) have nearly increased by four times between the periods of 1983 to 2003, thereby reaching up to an overwhelming $425 million. While, the Federal funds to the National Endowment for the Arts have taken a dip from $180 million in the year 1992 to $120 in 2003. (Cohen, 2002). Undoubtedly, since NEA has maintained its position as a significant figurehead, the state and federal governments are now facing the impact of community support to the NEA.

There are lawyers and other critic personalities who have build up their support in favor of the NEA and their arguments are based on ethical, financial and social grounds. A major argument that holds the ground n favor of the NEA is that, it is the duty of the government to assist the arts community so that there is an increased public interest in the country’s cultural activities . The initial aim of the NEA is “to make the arts more commonly obtainable to millions of Americans”, (Netzer, 1978). Similarly, many of the state arts funding agencies have put down an analogous section in their guide book.

For example, the state art funding agency of Virginia starts the guide book as follows, “support of development in artistic quality, public contribution in the arts, and access to the arts for all Virginians. ” Very often various sections of arts like classical music, theatre, and visual art have been linked to privileged, and moderately standardized audiences and are from time to time being criticized for this being isolated. In this observation, fairness and evenhandedness demand and call for government assistance of the art community.

Now the question that arises here is that whether governmental support really helps in increasing more communal participation in the art community by the general public of America? However, the simultaneous augment in state assistance and the public involvement in the arts, closely suggest that there exist an affiliation involving the two. As shown by the reports generated by the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA) in a country wide survey which was done five times between 1982 and 1999, it was revealed that cultural participation in every arts category, the community involvement has significantly increased in these years.

The most popular art subjects that scored a higher attendance were classical music, opera, jazz, musicals, plays, theatre, ballet and museums. (NEA, 1998). The possible reasons behind this increased interest may be credited to two likely details: the various local groups that were attending in the absence of state funding, could have increased their number – the high community people might have started going in higher number while on the other hand, the low socio economic groups would have increased their number in the wale of public awakening and state funding.

Therefore, if the state funding and support helps to make arts more popular within the masses, there would obviously a higher participation in the presence of increased state and local funding to the arts community. This report tries to check the dispute that governmental aid for the arts is defensible on the basis of civilizing justice by probing the connection between public involvement and state funding.

More exclusively, I will try to evaluate the potency of the relation connecting the local geographical uniqueness and involvement rates among different state and the level of state per capita funding. If in case a link is present between the public involvement and state funding, and results show that funding breaks the demographic barriers to participation in arts, the art community will definitely score higher and will advocate for pursuing state funding. On the other hand, if no progress is shown there is a need to change the existing approach to state funding.

This paper begins with I will initiate by investigating with an overview on the general involvement in arts and will show that there are noteworthy discrepancies that exist in the participation rates amongst various demographic and social groups. With the help of some available data from the 1998, state arts agencies that was directly reported to the NEA, I will bring out some conclusions regarding the state funding and participation levels. Finally, some explanations will be given explaining the result which will indicate some implications for the policies laid down by the government.

OVERVIEW AND BACKGROUND 1. Involvement in the Arts Most of the research work that has been carried on the art related activities in America are based upon the records that are obtained from the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, which was conducted 5 times 1982 and 1997 by the National Endowment for the Arts. Some of the main reasons for the discrepancies that have occurred in the results of public participation are due to the differences in education, income, race, gender and demographic locations.

Income was a clear indicator of higher presence in art events – an economic explanation to this fact is that in this case, a person with high income has extra resources that are expended on leisure activities like attending art events. (O’Hagan and Duffy, 1987). An individual’s earnings is a strong forecaster of his or her contribution in the arts. It was reported (NEA 1998), that people with higher incomes attended the arts academy very often and more regularly than people form other backgrounds.

On the other hand, another expert on the subject, Kolb did some research on the participation of students between 18 to 24 years of age and their participation was in direct relationship with the price of the tickets. Lower participation was a direct consequence of high rate tickets and vice versa. Data reveal that almost 40% of the students do not attend art events due to the high entry fees, around 29% stated that they found it boring and 15% stated that there was information or knowledge that they could gain from these events.

These figures suggest that price is the major factor accompanied by personal preferences and adequate information requirements (Kolbe 1997). Another factor that effects the participation is the level of education. Reports to the NEA in 1997, reveal that people who have attended graduate school were more likely to attend art events while those who attended only grade school had the lowest probability top attend art events. The art activities that were measures were jazz, classical music, dance, theater and ballet (O’Hagan). Also clear was that basic arts education or art subjects were also a factor of increased participation.

Since students if exposed to arts at an early age or during school, can get easily familiarized with this subject and may gain many positive experiences. Students who had taken up arts as a subject were more inclined to attend art events, but at times were restricted by the high entry fees . Thus, economic factor has once again pressed itself upon the issue of participation of public in such events (Bergonzi and Smith). Another factor is the racial differences in taste. The reports generated in 1999, clearly show that blacks had much less percentage of attendance at art events than whites.

However, at events related to jazz music , ( a form of art originated from the blacks) had 70% higher attendance of blacks than whites. These reasons can be easily attributed to the dissimilar tastes of different ethnic groups. According to DiMaggio and Ostrower, “effects of race on [arts] activities, however, are dwarfed by those of educational attainment and are often less than those of income, gender, or place of residence”. Thus we see that participation in arts depends upon a number of factors – economic, social, ethnic and education.

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