MESOC Serapeum | Where culture meets AI

Id		105
Author		Azevedo, M.,
Title		The evaluation of the social impacts of culture: culture, arts and development
Reference		Azevedo, M. (2016). The evaluation of the social impacts of culture : culture, arts and development. Economics and Finance. Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I.
Link to article		https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01804118v2
Abstract		The study is focused in two particular and different cases, where the external factors are determinants to the aim plotted. The first case is about European Capital of Culture 2012 (Guimarães, Portugal), and the increase of tourism with its own dynamics, both positive and negative. The second case is about a program that works in the megacity of Sao Paulo. This case has many external variables like quantity of people, traffic, security and other kind of issues have big incidences in the social and economic environment.

Results:

Candidate transition variables
The last individual outcome area explored by the studies focused on wellbeing outcomes, the assessed areas of impact were happiness, pleasure, enjoyment, life satisfaction and feeling of peace. .
The stimulation of social interactions helps to tackle isolation and contributes to building bonds. .
In this regard, the proposed theoretical framework highlights cultures main function in sustainable development consists in its ability to stimulate a system of networks, especially through building social capital and enhancing leadership and organisational skills which can forge bottom-up process of collective action and revitalisation. .
First, building a sense of community where through the enhancement of social interaction, which leads to social cohesion, social capital can be formed (encompassing the effects on those more directly involved in the experience). .
Repeated opportunities for encounters and social interaction can produce social solidarity and social cohesion through the recognition of common interests and the creation of common connections. .
Therefore, the formation of groups and the consequent enhancement of community involvement, grounded on values of trust and co-operation. .
Therefore, individuals that are brought together through intensive interaction and cooperation activities might foster social capital and increase their ability for community involvement in the future. .
Its experiential activities provide opportunities for social interaction and the creation of common grounds, developing trust of others, establishing social bonds and building bridges in a pluralistic society (social capital); subsequently, by bringing people together and enhancing community-oriented values, these activities strengthen public and critic awareness of their life settings and enhance specific community organizational skills, which can encourage capacity for collective action and civic engagement (community involvement). .
However, as discussed earlier, the bridging connections that bring different people together are the ones that tend to reinforce community awareness. .
This movement was, as expected, accompanied by an increase in tourism activity. .
Indeed, these social virtues can stimulate the critical capacity in relation to life surroundings, and self-satisfaction and can induce collective actions that meet the needs of the local reality, and therefore foster citizenship and fairer societies. .
This data indicates that inhabitants of the neighbouring municipalities use the city on a daily basis. .
Fostering trust between participants and thereby increasing their generalized trust of others. .
Providing an experience of collective efficacy and civic engagement, which spurs participants to further collective action... to be a source of pride for residents (participants and nonparticipants alike) in their community, increasing their sense of connection to that community. .
Indeed, a deeper level of trust and identity among community members (to support future undertakings) builds community capacity for collective action. .
In turn, when bringing people together, it helps to increase public awareness and to improve group planning and organising activities, the core bases of community empowerment for collective action. .
On the other hand, they foment bridging by breaking down barriers based on cultural differences, enabling a better understanding of the world around and developing opportunities to discuss social problems and participate in civil society. .
D. Building a sense of community As identified in the empirical work review, cultural activities provide opportunities through different inputs for people to come together and interact. .
In this case the value connected to the mere existence of a cultural institution, without requiring direct use, can foster a sense of pride and community empowerment helping to develop a positive image and attractive environment (for example Casa da Musica-House of Music, in Porto, is an example of this good). .
Communities that engage in arts activities on the occasions of interacting build a sense of belonging to a place, a group, an identity, where there is recognition of common grounds. .
Indeed, arts develop a sense of community by repeatedly giving opportunities for expressing public values, Arts events and activities can give people a feeling of belonging (gained through joining a group or becoming involved with local arts organizations) and can reinforce an individuals connection to the community by giving public expression to the values and traditions of that community and sustaining its cultural heritage (McCarthy et al. 2004:14). .
Therefore, territories implementing strategies of development based on their cultural values recognise and celebrate common grounds and encourage a sense of belonging and place identity. .
Nonetheless, arts and culture are capable of creating and giving rise to a sense of place, not only by celebrating communal values, but also by providing opportunities to meet and understand other value systems, to embrace diversity, to develop trust among others and to establish social networks. .
It worked with the slogan Culture does good, putting a lot of effort into research on effects of cultural engagement on wellbeing and quality of life. .
These factors together stimulate the local population to produce new collective memories, based on a collective reflection and expression over the community heritage and values. .
On one hand, they provide space for bonding by strengthening existing connections, celebrating identity and heritage. .
The first, educational and cognitive benefits, denotes that culture can develop learning capacities. .
Lastly, producing quality experiences means developing cultural activities which induce creative thinking, social interaction and informal processes of education when exploring the territory values and heritage. .
The empirical observation allowed identifying factors of effectiveness through which cultural programmes can enhance social capacities. .
Specifically, on the ECoC programmes, three factors were encountered, the programmes ability to enrich the physical environment (where the renewal and celebration of cultural - physical and immaterial - heritage can forge new behaviours in the public space), to engage the population (where citizens active role can give them opportunities to develop crucial skills for collective action) and to produce quality activities (where creatively exploring territorys symbols can induce informal learning processes). .
The community social value is an area of collective impact raised by cultural activities that concern the promotion of social contact, interaction and social inclusion, enhancement of the sense of community identity, development of the ability to cooperate on a social issue, to civic engage and to build social capital. .
Summing up, engagement in artistic practices provides opportunities not only for exploring community values, which helps to reinforce the community value systems and the sense of place, but also for meeting other groups and their value systems, which encourages cohesion and the development of partnerships. .
It is this form of social capital that is theorized to be particularly valuable to communities because it not only connects individuals but also leads them to work together for their community (Polson et al. 2013:761). .
For example, volunteering in a project or supporting a cultural venue means coming together regularly with others and working for the same institutional objectives, which can increase trust, promote tolerance for cultural diversity and generate networks. .
Thus social interaction and opportunities for celebrating (expressing) territorys heritage, while engaging in attractive and informal learning experiences, are drivers brought by these programmes, which induce more community oriented common grounds and value systems. .
Also the cultural professionals would profit from the connections established with the local population while performing close to the community in public spaces, by continuing to implement active connections with the public, which boosts community building, as explained earlier. .
Indeed, as discussed in the chain of community-level social impacts, culture and the arts are capable of connecting people in way that can build the social capital necessary to forge a sense of community and induce civic involvement. .
Therefore, cultural assets, through a system of meanings and symbols, can not only produce and export high value products and experiences, but can also induce a transversal and on-going process of social learning capable of prompting community oriented action and hence be an alternative strategy for the traditional models of growth. .
The anthropological appropriation of culture is connected to the role of culture for sustainable development, where cultural values, contexts and expressions operate as drivers and mediators of growth and where culture is the meaningful content of human societies and communities. .
The emotional interpretation pointed to the ability of arts to amuse, entertain and contribute to happiness. .
Yet, the appropriation of culture as a leading player in territory development is determined by the cultural sectors capacity to produce a broad array of extrinsic (instrumental) effects, not only related to economic outcomes but also to other social dimensions raised during the theoretical discussion, such as enjoyment, personal development, civilizing processes and the establishment of community references. .
Therefore interest in exploring the social impacts produced by cultural activities was raised. .
E. Cultural inputs and artistic forms that drive the potential effects If attending cultural events and taking part of arts activities can produce benefits It has been shown that attending cultural events and taking part in arts activities can produce benefits on different social dimensions. .
These different forms of interacting with culture and with a specific art form will give rise to different effects. .
The potential human responses that can be triggered with the engagement in a cultural experience are activated and influenced not only by the aesthetic elements transmitted and perceived via the art form (the artistic, visual and symbolic elements), but also by the influences of previous experiences (constitutive of patterns of reaction) and by the particularities of the contexts of engagement (the frame and setting of the experience). .
A few of the reviewed studies enumerated factors that enhance the arts experience effectiveness on inducing the propagation of the effects: activities which are linked with local community value systems, the flexible and open spirit of the engagement, the ability to boost collaboration and empathy, providing opportunities for expressing feelings and for stimulating imagination, and lastly, the intensity of the experience. .
According to the first segment of impact, arts and culture provide socially valuable leisure activities, elevate people's thinking and contribute positively to their psychological and social well-being and enhance their sensitivity (The European Task Force on Culture and Development 1997). .
There are different forms of cultural participation, like participating in an artistic activity, appreciating a work of art or volunteering for a cultural venue. .
Thus the arts engagement can encourage involvement in the civic life of a community. .
Therefore culture can be accomplished as an important strategy for implementing sustainable development policies, by inducing social capital formation. .
These cultural activities offer opportunities for the local population to engage in informal actions in informal public places, which explore the physical environment (physical patrimony) and celebrate their cultural values (immaterial patrimony). .
Enriching the physical environment in a territory is accomplished by implementing urban renewal strategies that develop new infrastructure projects but also invite the public to celebrate their cultural heritage by developing cultural activities that encourage the occupation of public places. .
Therefore, developing cultural actions for social transformation not only means offering a diversity of artistic events, but also effectively providing experiences that are sustainable and significant for building a democratic society. .
Expression was recognised as a driver for inducing citizenship enhancement, and encompasses opportunities for manifestations of individual and collective identity, and constructions encouraged by leisure and cultural activities in non-formal and informal learning formats. .
Therefore, the ability to express our own identity, through leisure and cultural activities is an important driver to enhancing individual critical and civic capacity. .
In this regard, the proposed theoretical framework highlighted culture and the arts can have a strategic function on sustainable community development. .
Therefore, it could be useful to encourage spaces for debating culture roles on development among artists for their awareness of culture and the arts capacity for impact the creative community fabric and for convey a system of values. .
In this sense, this study argues that although other type of programmes (like leisure occupations) are also able to stir creativity, spontaneity and induce critical capacity, culture has a particular role in providing opportunities for building a pluralistic and democratic society as it conveys symbolic meanings through its experience. .
Therefore, through awareness of the full set of externalities produced by culture and the arts, cultural-based development policies can manage cultural resources accordingly. .
The different studies that have pointed out the successful results of incorporating art activities into the health care environment have covered aspects of improving mental and physical health, reducing stress, anxiety, symptoms of depression, the need for care service and medication and increasing the odds of survival. .
This report was oriented toward community arts projects, and sought to appraise ways in which the arts positively affect childrens feelings of good health. .
Next, political and institutional interventions have been made in recognition of the successful role of culture and arts in creating safer environments by reducing and preventing crime. .
The cultural activities provide opportunities to enjoy public areas, to interact and to meet new people. .
In turn, a few reports found that social interaction and contact stimulated through engagement in the arts helps to develop trust with others and to establish networks. .
In general, cultural activities are claimed to provide opportunities to enjoy public areas, to interact and to meet new people. .
Additionally, by enrolling in leisure and cultural activities social interaction among different users of the centres is also stimulated. .
Moreover, Community Matters, an initiative brought to life based on the idea of neighbours helping neighbours, recognized the importance of art works, of working with local artists and creative assets, to bring people together and to sustain the revitalisation of spaces, by connecting artists to artists and encouraging art-making in the community they are discovering opportunities for art to make a difference. .
According to their model, art brings inspirational work and offers the potential to enter into flow (edge) states where change can occur and new elements (learning processes) can arise. .
3. Building community-level social values through culture and the arts: a theoretical approach Introduction What exactly happens to people cognitively, emotionally, and socially when they make art that might lead them to view themselves and their world differently? .
B. Promotion of social connections Subsequently the model conveys that cultural activities provide opportunities for people to come together, interact and collectively express personal emotions resulting from an art experience. .
In fact, through the enormous variety of types of music the country holds, musical expression encourages cultural diversity and consequently, stimulates dialogue and tolerance towards differences. .
Moreover, actively taking part of a cultural experience provides participants with opportunities to develop organizational and leadership skills which are important for building community capacity for future action outside of the artistic experience and in favour of the common good. .
They taught people excluded from traditional educational environments how to read, and fostered a critical capacity in those who could already read by diversifying their reading. .
The perception and motivation segment covers peoples perception of arts, feeling more positive about them and recognising their influence on personal motivation, energy, mood and on self-image and self-assessment considerations. .
Through the development process chain it was possible to identify specific drivers brought about by the arts and culture, namely opportunities for communication and social interaction which can trigger social capacities. .
Moreover, the author identifies drivers brought by arts programmes, which can put forward mechanisms of social capital building and motivation for civic engagement, such as Creating a venue that draws people together who would otherwise not be engaged in constructive social activity. .
As announced in the programme objectives, there was a primary concern with the engagement of the population in the programme in order to promote networks in the local social fabric, which was reflected in the artistic experiences created. .
The Council understood that these leisure activities, by providing quality experiences where people could interact and develop their capacities, could be exploited for social stimulation and knowledge. .
If on the one hand leisure and cultural activities allow taking part of experiences and exploring individual emotions in the company of others without necessarily implicating other personal commitments; on the other hand, through engaging in these activities a shared enjoyment can be produced, which consequently can motivate future encounters and forms of co-operation. .
In the analysis and particularly in the interviews, it was ascertained that the social and civic awareness learning process is accomplished through drivers brought about by leisure and cultural activities, namely opportunities for expression, interaction, creation and experiential learning, which allow internalising community-oriented values of trust, tolerance, empathy for diversity and awareness of public space, all of which are imperative for citizenship growth. .
The role of the staff - the arts professionals developing the activities - was defined as essential to ensuring the quality of the experience, to enhance the motivation of participants and consequently to certify the development of the potential outcomes. .
In research by Goodlad et al. on the ability of arts programmes to support social inclusion, the authors describe a line of benefits from the individual to community level: What begins as a case of taking part for the sake of it, produces benefits in skills, self-confidence, self-esteem and well-being. .
Thus, people co-operating and working towards an artistic programme, by gaining organizational and leadership abilities can increase their ability to face other community challenges. .
Other studies explored the development of peoples empathy and tolerance among different cultures and lifestyles. .
Even if these activities normally do not stimulate social interaction, they are capable of enhancing creativity and opportunities for expression. .
Here local governments can take an important role in providing equal and democratic access to quality free-time activities, by targeting arts-based pursuits. .
In general, the graphic illustrates a pronounced link between the active engagement in arts activities and the educational outcomes, advocating for greater interest in this field of research, particularly in arts programmes developed in school environments. .
According to the Arts education in secondary schools: effects and effectiveness study, some of the major benefits of arts programmes were the effects on the school ethos, in the sense of pride and of the positive and adventurous atmosphere created by involvement in the arts, and on the school image, which raised its public profile due to the arts activities it promoted (Harland et al. 2000). .
Through sustainable engagement in these activities people can develop skills that can be valuable for other community organizations outside the arts groups, in external social contexts and in future situations. .
As seen, these encounters are occasions for participants to discover and explore shared interests. .
Providing a good reception service, clean spaces that are architectonically well thought-out, and respecting and assisting the public are the basic rules of the institution. .
Nevertheless, as discussed earlier, social interaction is a key driver for imparting community-oriented values. .
Individual Impacts Regarding the individual impacts of cultural activities affecting people throughout engagement, the main identified topics of impact were, according to the review, cognitive development, attitudinal changes, perceptions and motivation, health improvements and wellbeing. .
Specifically, with these active and instructive occupations the institution aims to induce social education and enhance citizenship building. .
The Secker et al. study on participatory arts projects developed in England with people with mental health needs, demonstrated that arts initiatives are opportunities for social contact that allow dealing with stigmas of isolation and for building bonds that contribute to social inclusion (Secker et al. 2007). .
These community-level social effects are attitudinal changes within a community in forms of socialization and civilising processes, which helps people to find shared interests and opportunities for connection that can promote collective action to reaching a bottom-up process of community intervention - community revitalisation. .
At the light of the previous chain of community-level social impacts, cultural activities by being favourable to social interaction and connections, to the development of leadership and organizational skills, by encouraging trust and the adoption of common values when pursuing specific agendas, can induce social capital formation. .
These particular projects show that engagement in arts and culture activity can develop a sense of belonging to a place, where ex-offenders are supported to re-enter society and potential offenders have a space to work on their social problems. .
For example, in the case of the Chichester Festival Theatre economic impact study, the injection of spending from theatregoers and hired professionals benefits other local businesses...as demand for their goods and services increases. .
The development of these specific competencies when involved in arts projects occur, for example, when volunteering in a local arts project or when serving as board members of arts organizations, raising funds for local artistic projects and running an organisation. .
Arts and cultural activities can produce higher levels of social capacities, classified as extrinsic to the arts outcomes, in the sense they can be used in external contexts and produce effects that those not directly involved can also profit from. .
Thus, culture was understood not only as a force capable of attracting tourists but also capable of generating exports, as The particular nature of local resources and know-how influences how products constituting the new cultural economy are brought up-to-date. .
Beyond celebrating the local cultural heritage, creation and experiences, the initiative has gained a clear revitalisation purpose, i.e., of enabling the socioeconomic development of cities through culture: the European Capitals of Culture have become laboratories of strategic investment in culture, benefiting our economies and our societies as a whole (European Commission and Directorate-General for Education and Culture 2015:1). .
These dynamics exploit cultural assets as opportunities to produce and export high value products, services and experiences, through the symbols and knowledge these assets convey. .
In precis, this study is driven by the increasing demand to account for other dimensions of cultures transformative power on the development of societies besides economic spillover, in order to describe the value of culture in society. .
Therefore, this identified function of culture within sustainable development policies, as inducer of social capital formation, exposes the symbolic value brought by culture, should not be only confined to the role of culture in the economic growth (discussed on the first chapter) - where cultural assets are opportunities to produce and export high value products and services - but should be prolonged to a more extensive role of culture on social urban change -where culture is the glue that sets the foundation at a profound level in society and helps to mediate, through a complex system of networks, the action and transformation towards sustainable development. .
Policy actions Lastly, is important to understand this function of culture of mediating community action and social transformation by imparting community-oriented values through particular processes of experiential learning, stimulating creativity and opportunities for expression and social interaction, providing alternative grounds for cultural-based development policies beyond the traditional economic and financial rationales. .
First, it is crucial to explore how these social externalities of culture can be incorporated and stimulated in the political agenda. .
To close, the debate over the role of culture and the arts in development has shown that cultures function in growth can work in many different ways, some of which are more easily trackable and perceivable than others. .
The extent and type of activity can be a determinant for fostering community involvement. .
Therefore, by inducing local people to intervene in the public space, through actions for the satisfaction of their own interests or for the sake of improvements in the community quality of life, bibliosesc is building individual civic capacity. .
Nonetheless, this does not mean that culture and the arts are able only by themselves, through the social capital that they form, to produce community development. .
In short, both cultural interventions developed their cultural programme in order to boost their regional economic and social development. .
For example, there are centres located in richer environments where people naturally participate in cultural activities. .
Consequently, when exploring the social effects produced by cultural activities we can refer to different domains of societal impacts. .
As we have seen, by transporting symbols and references culture and the arts provide tools to stimulate discussion and to help citizens to position themselves in community life, which by itself can forge bottom-up processes of action and contribute to engagement in democratic civic life. .
This plan acknowledged the democratization of the access to culture as a mechanism not only for contact with different forms of artistic expression, but mainly for promoting social interaction and reducing the social and economic barriers inside each community. .
Therefore, the ECoC initiative presently proposes to highlight the richness and diversity of cultures in Europe; celebrate the cultural features Europeans share; increase European citizens' sense of belonging to a common cultural area; foster the contribution of culture to the development of cities, and is perceived as an opportunity for regenerating cities, raising the international profile of cities; enhancing the image of cities in the eyes of their own inhabitants; breathing new life into a city's culture and boosting tourism (European Commission 2016). .
The key aim of the initiative was to develop conditions and opportunities for artistic creation in the city, through the development of facilities and reinforcement of local capacity (ECORYS 2013). .
These factors are the programmes ability to enrich the physical environment, to engage the population and to produce quality activities. .
For example, people who are more convivial may be more likely to participate in cultural and leisure activities and to demonstrate intensive forms of community involvement. .
Social interaction is another driver encouraged by Sesc Sao Paulo activities for building civic consciousness and community commitment. .
It advocates for the role of culture as a potential tool for inducing a civilising process and a healthy civil society, demonstrating that intensive programmes like the ECoC, based on the territories cultural values, can reduce crime rates by generating common grounds and more community oriented value systems, through opportunities for expressing collective community values and sustaining its cultural heritage, and through an informal education processes. .
For Cowen, private management ensures positive cultural contributions for growth as it is based on market dynamics. .
To evidence the key contributions of culture to economic wealth numerous studies and mapping documents have been made, assessing the induced economic impact of cultural activities. .
Lastly, a few studies reported some impressions regarding the economic impacts, which reflect the capacities that cultural activities have to increase employment opportunities, to develop tourism and local commerce and to induce new sources of income. .
Simultaneous to this negative interpretation, there is an old social debate arguing for the positive effects of cultural activities on individuals and communities, in shaping identities, enhancing mental and physical capacities, linking people and empowering communities. .
C. Expression of communal meaning This social capability contains cultural activities that offer people opportunities to express communal meanings. .
It reports on how since the late 90s numerous cultural-based local dynamics have emerged as supportive tools for economic and social development, urban regeneration and the quality of life. .
Thus, the results of the ECoC initiative over crime against patrimony also have to take into consideration the historical urban regeneration dynamics of the city and the surrounding region, which was reinforced in the capital year. .
Long-term commitment is established when the city council, local cultural operators and other local actors, are willing to build on the experience of the title year for the future development of the city, by reinforcing the importance of the cultural policy for its sustainable growth. .
In fact, the development of citizenship, anchored in freedom and democracy, allowed to enlarge the possibilities of civic engagement and construction of fairer societies (Reis 2000:114). .
This initial motivation of bringing together the European Union citizens throughout a cultural programme is still valid today, but the initiative objectives have witnessed an evolution of the programme towards becoming a highly recognised development tool. .
Therefore, the plan embraced and enhanced the major role of culture for individual and community education by conveying values for creating civic and critical conscience. .
Arts experiences, by transporting symbols, provide citizens with references to interpret and position in the world and community life, which can forge political action. .
The providers of these cultural activities are mostly schools offering arts programmes in school periods through teachers and arts professionals. .
In fact, a meaningful part of the programme focused on creating artistic experiences for citizen engagement, through projects such as story-telling (where people were invited to host an open story telling evening in their homes) or the closing ceremony You are Part of It, which involved the local population. .
In these centres the programmatic content is developed in order to attract people by supplying cultural experiences, and once the public establish a relationship with the institution they are offered other activities and stimulus, recognised as missing in peoples lives, like physical activities or nutritional programmes. .
These humanising theories attributed to the aesthetic experience by past interpretations, set a link between artistic activities and individual and community progress. .
This process of social conversation and reflection boosted by the arts is closely related with the Bygren et al. advocacy of the importance of dialogue in a visual art experiment to boost effects on health conditions (Bygren et al. 2013). .
Beyond that culture conciliates affinities in the diversity of identities, stimulates a pluralist and democratic society. .
Moreover, manifestations of collective identity are crucial to communicating other value systems and to know how to live and behave in a pluralistic society, by encouraging tolerance towards differences. .
Moreover, the enhancement of social capital and the empowerment of communities with organizational skills explain culture and the arts role on sustainable community development by inducing dense system of networks. .
Moreover, once more, there are mainly the cultural activities, like attending the theatre, dance shows, reading books, visiting craft fairs, attending popular festivals or poetry sessions that tend to have a significant positive association with having cooperated with neighbours to solve a community problem. .
Most of the Sesc units have an auditorium where performances and theatre workshops are delivered for a growing audience; these activities usually provide opportunities for amateurs to meet and to develop their own theatre groups, which sometimes give performances (SESC Sao Paulo 1997). .
Matarasso advocated that arts projects can encourage the active participation of the local population in community life, and that this engagement is crucial to preserving city order. .
In fact, cumulative engagement allows the individual to become more familiar, knowledgeable and connected to the language of the arts form. .

ARTICLE - CANDIDATE TRANSITION VARIABLES

Results: