MESOC Serapeum | Where culture meets AI

Id		119
Author		McCarthy, K., F.; Ondaatje, E., H.; Zakaras, L., ; Brooks, A.,
Title		Gifts of the muse: Reframing the debate about the benefits of the arts.
Reference		McCarthy, K. F., Ondaatje, E. H., Zakaras, L., y Brooks, A. (2004). Gifts of the muse: Reframing the debate about the benefits of the arts. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.
Link to article		https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2005/RAND_MG218.pdf
Abstract		Understanding the benefits of the arts is central to the discussion and design of policies affecting the arts. This study addresses the widely perceived need to articulate the private and public benefits of involvement in the arts. The findings are intended to engage the arts community and the public in a new dialogue about the value of the arts, to stimulate further research, and to help public and private policymakers reach informed decisions.

Results:

Candidate transition variables
Growth in self-confidence and self-efficacy. .
The focus in these studies is on the process of community members coming together to pursue shared goalshow this gives them a feeling of connectedness and belonging, develops trust, and creates organizational skills and a habit of civic involvement. .
Building a Sense of Community. .
This combination of shared interests and repeated opportunities for social interaction allows people to discover additional connections, which can create social links. .
Specifically, the discussion above highlights the fact that the initial steps in building a capacity for collective action entail the establishment of interactions among community residents, which can then lead to social ties (bonds and bridges), a sense of common identity, and social cohesionall precursors to social capital. .
It begins with the promotion of social interaction that leads first to the formation of social cohesion through bonds and bridges and then to the formation of social capital. .
Social capital is both an output of the increasing social cohesion and community identity at the community level (stage .
The way in which the arts facilitate these developmental processes is through the raising of funds for local arts projects or facilities, the running of arts organizations and community arts projects, and the advising of local arts groups. .
And in the middle are benefits that both enhance individuals personal lives and have a desirable spillover effect on the public sphere. .
In between are benefits that enhance individual lives and also have spillover effects that benefit the public sphere. .
They are typically essential to building cross-sector cooperation among different groups for sustaining this community mobilization. .
These activities can provide an important basis for building social capital and community identity. .
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 (Fromm, 1955; Lowe, 2000; Griffiths, 1993; Stern, 2000). .
Regular involvement in these arts activities can produce social solidarity and social cohesion through the creation of community symbols (e.g., neighborhood murals) and community identity. .
There is indeed a kind of pleasure in appreciating a work of art that relates powerfully to our own experiences. .
This kind of interaction immerses individuals in the communicative cycle of art, which creates intrinsic benefits. .
Those individuals who are most engaged by their arts experience are the ones who are the most attuned to the intrinsic benefits, and those benefits create not only positive attitudes toward the arts, but also the motivation to return. .
It is such experiences that make people into life-long participants in the arts. .
Moreover, the ability of the arts to express communal meaning and present expressions of shared cultural heritage are intrinsic benefits that have broader public value. .
Whether it is the immediate delight and wonder that the arts experience can trigger or the cognitive benefits that come from more sustained arts involvement, the intrinsic benefits derived from the experience are what motivate individuals to become involved in the arts. .
First, the arts can provide a variety of benefits that are primarily personal, or private, such as providing pleasure or relieving the anxiety felt before undergoing a medical procedure. .
Studies of cognitive benefits focus on the development of learning skills and academic performance in school-aged youth. .
This diversity in learning styles makes the arts (and arts-related techniques) well suited for teaching traditional academic skills. .
Integrating the arts into the teaching of the more traditional academic subjects builds on this insight, as well as on the recognition of different learning styles and forms of intelligence, to enrich students understanding of other subjects. .
We contend not only that these intrinsic effects are satisfying in themselves, but that many of them can lead to the development of individual capacities and community cohesiveness that are of benefit to the public sphere. .
We even suggest that these effects are instrumental in that they can open people to life and create the fabric of shared values and meanings that improves the public sphere. .
Understanding the benefits of the arts is central to the discussion and design of policies affecting the arts. .
One of the key insights from this analysis is that the most important instrumental benefits require sustained involvement in the arts. .
Continued involvement develops the competencies that change individual tastes and enrich subsequent arts experience. .
The model of the participation process that we developed not only highlights these points, but also suggests how to build involvement in, and therefore demand for, the arts. .
Our analysis of how individuals develop a life-long commitment to the arts suggests a variety of ways in which to promote this objective. .
Research has shown that early exposure is often key to developing life-long involvement in the arts. .
Create circumstances for rewarding arts experiences. .
This insight is a key to understanding the intrinsic effects of arts experiences. .
One way of defining great art is by its continued effect on the public sphere throughout time. .
We will consider this aspect of the aesthetic experience when we discuss how art helps expand individual capacities. .
In this way, art can redefine the culture and influence artistic traditions. .
The key aspect of these initial experiences for future arts involvement is that the arts experience itself, rather than simply the social circumstances in which it occurs, engages the participant enough that he or she develops a positive attitude toward the arts and the possibility of future arts involvement. .
Indeed, a chief advantage of early exposure to the arts is that it can create more openness to later arts participation. .
Once again, the key element of these gateway experiences is that they are positive and condition the individual to consider future arts participation. .
Individuals whose preferred mode is appreciation (e.g., attending, listening, reading) expand their knowledge of a particular art form, including both a range of artists and artistic styles. .
Those whose preferred mode is doing art (performing and creating) become more skilled in executing the techniques of their preferred art form and in understanding differences in interpretation. .
These characteristics help shape the individuals predilection toward the arts, as well as the appeal that different modes of participation and disciplines will hold for him or her. .
Similarly, the salient features of other early arts experiences include the following: (1) the context in which the experiences occure.g..
The key to the participation cycle is the arts experience. .
Once an individual understands how to become engaged in an arts experiencewhat to notice, how to make sense of itthe rewards of the experience are both immediate and cumulative. .
Bottom Line Since the key to being able to gain benefits from the arts lies in being brought into a process of recurrent compelling encounters with works of art, we have tried to illuminate both the factors that trigger arts involvement in the first place and the factors that help that arts involvement deepen over time. .
Participation in the arts is motivated by intrinsic benefits derived from arts experiences, and it is only through such experiences that a variety of instrumental benefits can be realized. .
Individuals pursue continued involvement in the arts if their arts experiences are fully engagingemotionally, cognitively, socially. .
Continued involvement develops the competencies that change individual tastes and enrich subsequent arts experiences. .
Our approach emphasizes the variety of benefits the arts can provide to individuals and to the public. .
Our view that arts benefits are grounded in compelling arts experiences highlights the importance of taking steps to develop the capacity to engage in such experiences. .
And our analysis of how individuals acquire a life-long commitment to the arts suggests a variety of ways to promote this objective. .
The goal of public policy should be to bring as many people as possible into engagement with their culture through meaningful experiences of the arts. .
Within each of these categories, we identify a series of key concepts that can contribute to an understanding of how the arts can produce social benefits at the community level. .
The health-related studies focus more on how the use of arts in therapy aids both the caregiver (by relieving stress or improving performance) and the patient (by relieving the anxiety that procedures such as surgery can engender or helping those with particular physical disabilities). .
The findings are intended to engage the arts community and the public in a new dialogue about the value of the arts, to stimulate further research, and to help public and private policymakers reach informed decisions.
This reaction to a work of art can connect people more deeply to the world and open them to new ways of seeing and experiencing the world. .
Policy Implications and Recommendations The studys key policy implication is that policy should be geared toward spreading the benefits of the arts by introducing greater numbers of Americans to engaging arts experiences. .
Promote early exposure to the arts. .
We acknowledge that this is an exploratory discussion designed to promote closer attention to the ways in which individuals and communities may change through arts involvement. .
Schools with an arts-rich environment offer a variety of opportunities for students to develop positive attitudes toward the arts and toward school more generally. .
Stepping forward to help produce a local production, launching a fund-raising campaign, and securing rehearsal or studio space in a community center are some of the many ways that people who may be drawn into local art communities might develop management and organizational competencies, a sense of collective efficacy, and relationships within the community in aid of future undertakings. .
In its own way, each art form is capable of calling us out of ourselves and stimulating rapt involvement. .
It can lead them to a fuller experience of the work of art and create a public space in which meanings are shared and perspectives expressed and clarified. .
For adults already attracted to some form of the arts, the appeal of social activities may lead to new arts interests: a friend or colleague with a love for a particular art form can facilitate entry into that domain. .
Community-based organizations may have distinct advantages in promoting this process, particularly for adults who have little prior experience with the arts. .
But all arts organizations can do more to provide their audiences with compelling arts experiences, including offering educational seminars that help participants develop the capacities for appreciating a more-challenging repertoire. .
The arts expand individuals capacities for empathy by drawing them into the experiences of people vastly different from them and cultures vastly different from their own. .
At the most basic level, the arts provide opportunities for people to come together through their attendance at arts events and classes, arts festivals, and arts fairs. .
Museums, filled with such commemorative art, provide an artistic legacy that captures the history and values of entire civili-zations.16 Art also introduces new voices into the community, voices that can redefine the fabric of the culture. .
Far from being isolated from ordinary experience, the arts, through their communicative power, enhance individual engagement with the world in ways that have both personal and public benefits. .
After all, the existence of works of art alone does not make for a vital arts culture: It is the interplay between artistic creation, aesthetic enjoyment, and public discourse about art that creates and maintains such a culture. .
Some of the studies that fall into the first general category focus on the way the arts help connect members of a community together. .
The arts can also offer opportunities for building social capital, since interest and involvement in the arts can lead people to participate in arts-based associations and organiza-tionsfor example, subscribing to community-based arts organizations, performing with arts-based groups such as choirs and neighborhood theaters, and volunteering with such groups or becoming a member of their boards. .
Indeed, the primary purpose of certain types of creative activitycommunity art, for exampleis to build a sense of community and create a social identity among the participants. .
Recurrent gatherings of a book group, for example, provide an opportunity for socializing, which builds trust, even friendship, and may create social capital. .
Cognitive benefits can be generated by better educationthat is, by providing more-effective reading and mathematics courses. .
Such an experience can produce pleasure in the sense of deep satisfaction, a category that includes the satisfaction associated with works of art the individual finds deeply unsettling, disorienting, or tragic. .
People are drawn to the arts not for their instrumental effects, but because encountering a work of art can be a rewarding experienceit can give individuals pleasure and emotional stimulation and meaning. .
The kinds of benefits that could develop from an arts-rich school environment are as follows: Improved attitudes toward arts and school. .
In addition, doing art provides a particularly effective way to develop the personal skills that are critical not only to becoming an effective learner, but to behavioral change as well. .
Instead, it is the expectation that encountering a work of art can be a rewarding experience, one that offers them pleasure and emotional stimulation and meaning. .
We think that art can best be understood as a communicative cycle in which the artist draws upon two unusual giftsa capacity for vivid personal experience of the world, and a capacity to express that experience through a particular artistic medium. .
Unlike most communication, which takes place through discourse, art communicates through felt experience, and it is the personal, subjective response to a work of art that imparts intrinsic benefits. .
The artist provides individuals with an imaginative experience that is often a more intense, revealing, and meaningful version of actual experience. .
Intrinsic benefits accrue to the public sphere when works of art convey what whole communities of people yearn to express. .
Most of the benefits of the arts come from individual experiences that are mentally and emotionally engaging, experiences that can be shared and deepened through reflection, conversations, and reading. .
Drawing on studies in fields such as philosophy, aesthetics, and art criticism, we discuss our contention that art is a unique form of communication, one capable of creating intrinsic benefits that enhance the lives of individuals and often contribute to the public welfare as well. .
In the act of creative expression, the artist finds images and forms (plastic, musical, kinetic, literary) that embody his or her vision in a way that can be conveyed to others. .
The arts, for example, provide the means for communally expressing personal emotion. .
And it underscores the vital role of individual arts experiences in this whole process. .
When people share the experience of works of art, either by discussing them or by communally experiencing them, one of the intrinsic benefits is the social bonds that are created. .
The arts can also help create linkages across different groups, thus developing intergroup cooperation and establishing partnerships. .
Although one might think of artists as solitary, many ways of creating art involve groups of artists and can lead to social interactions among the same group of people. .
As discussed in the next chapter, the communicative nature of the arts, the personal nature of creative expression, and the trust associated with revealing ones creativity to others may make joint arts activities particularly conducive to forging social bonds and bridges across social divides. .
Though group attendance is the most direct path from arts appreciation to realizing these social benefits, it is also possible that an individual could participate alone or as part of a small group and, by virtue of this experience, establish connections and bonds to others that would be realized subsequently. .
The social contacts and networks associated with overseeing an arts organization are often both the contributions and the benefits of board service. .
These activities can also facilitate the cooperation between arts and non-arts groups that is essential for community organizing. .
Art is a communicative experience, a bridge from artist to audience and a bridge linking individual beholders to one another. .
People who are moved by a work of art often talk to others about the experience or read accounts of other peoples experiences to test their own perceptions and fill out their understanding. .
When an individual engages in such discourse about a work of art, whether with a small circle of friends or with a broader public, he or she brings personal and subjective responses into the public sphere, joining a community that wants to enrich individual appreciation, to re-experience and promote that particular work of art, and to seek and endorse works that provide similar experiences. .
Shared discourse influences the individuals experience of a particular work of art and can enrich subsequent experiences of it as well as experiences of similar works. .
The communicative power of art creates these ties among people in various ways. .
Indeed, our discussion of intrinsic benefits highlights the importance of art as a communicative experience and the fact that social discourse about that communication can enhance the quality of the arts experience. .
As we have indicated, the key to transforming occasional into frequent participants is to increase their emotional, cognitive, and social engagement in the arts experience. .
Building individual competence in the arts and developing the individuals ties to arts organizations are effective ways to amplify that engagement. .
Such a demand-side approach will help build a market for the arts by developing the capacity of individuals to gain benefits from their arts experiences. .
The arts are said to improve test scores and self-esteem among the young. .
Creating Benefits to Individuals The arts are claimed to have cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral benefits for children who are exposed to the arts in school. .
The opportunity to define success in school not simply in terms of the traditional school measures (such as grades and test scores in traditional academic classes), but also in terms of rewarding school-based arts experiences, inclusion in arts-focused social groups, and success in arts classes and activities provides an important way for students to develop self-confidence and a sense of being well integrated into the school environment. .
Direct Instruction in the Arts and Associated Benefits Direct instruction in the arts, which includes both arts appreciation courses and instruction on creating art, is likely to have different kinds of effects and to be most relevant to different kinds of students depending on the type of instruction the student receives. .
It is the experience of art that creates intrinsic benefits. .
But if their early creative experience has brought pleasure and recognition, it can become an ideal gateway to future arts experiences because the individuals have had a positive experience with the arts, have learned the underlying techniques of an art form, and have begun to develop the ability to discriminate between a good performance and a mediocre one.2 .
Intrinsic benefits build over time as the individual becomes more perceptive and more skilled at interpreting what he or she experiences. .
The process of frequent arts involvement is likely to develop competencies within a given domain that increase the emotional and mental intensity of the experience. .
A similar pattern is likely in the case of certain cognitive and behavioral benefits at the individual level, to the extent that individual participants must acquire certain skills or be involved with the arts over sustained periods before the benefits can be realized. .
Whether we are talking about learning how to learn or developing the personal skills instrumental in promoting behavioral change and educational success, sustained involvement in the arts education process is necessary. .
The result of recurrent experiences, these benefits spill over into the public realm in the form of individuals who are more empathetic and more discriminating in their judgments of the world around them: Expanded capacity for empathy. .
Beyond these immediate effects, there are personal effects that develop with recurrent aesthetic experiences, such as growth in ones capacity to feel, perceive, and judge for oneself and growth in ones capacity to participate imaginatively in the lives of others and to empathize with others. .
The benefits will differ, however, depending on whether the community is involved in creating art, appreciating art, or promoting art, as we describe next. .
Individual-Level Benefits Some forms of arts education are more likely to produce benefits than others, an observation that suggests empirical studies must be more specific about the type of arts activities engaged in by their subjects. .
Although these experiences can occur at any age, they appear to be the most effective in terms of developing positive attitudes toward the arts and an inclination to continue an involvement in the arts if they occur when a person is young. .
And finally, we reviewed the literature on participation in the arts to help us identify factors that give individuals access to the arts and the benefits they provide. .
How Individuals Gain Access to the Benefits A wide range of benefits can be gained from involvement in the arts, but we contend that many of themand particularly those most often cited by arts advocatesare gained only through a process of sustained involvement. .
The most promising way to develop audiences for the arts would be to provide well-designed programs in the nations schools. .
Arts organizations should consider it part of their responsibility to educate their audiences to appreciate the arts. .
They view the arts as a means of achieving broad economic and social goals, such as education, crime reduction, and community development. .
(These benefits can even improve the lives of community members who have no direct experience of the arts.) .
Types of Arts Involvement As was true for the studies of cognitive benefits, studies of attitudinal and behavioral benefits concentrate on exposure to the arts through educational programs. .
Finally, individuals value the arts because the arts can contribute to the general education and edification of the population and thus help produce a happier and more productive population. .
Also, research on community arts programs, as we shall describe, suggests that this kind of activity may provide its own, distinctive benefits to the community. .
For example, an improved attitude toward the arts and school could reasonably be associated not only with an arts-rich environment (as it is in the discussion that follows), but also with the use of the arts as a pedagogical tool to help students learn. .
Arts-Rich School Environment and Associated Benefits Schools differ not only in the types of arts education they offer as part of the academic curricula, but also in the extent to which the arts are part of the general school environment. .
An arts-rich school environment is also one that acknowledges the value of such activities and provides recognition to student participation. .
This type of arts education, as we stated earlier, is seen most frequently in history and social studies classes, where the use of art objects from a particular period or culture can help students gain a richer sense of the culture or period they are studying. .
Moreover, it can enrich their understanding of the art itself by placing it in a particular social, political, and historical context. .
Thus, the greater an individuals level of involvement with the arts, the more likely he or she is to realize various categories of benefits. .
Moreover, the prestige value that a community can obtain from the arts is based on the benefits that the community as a whole realizes from the esteem in which the community is held because of the arts available in the local area. .
As we explained in Chapter One, intrinsic benefits refer to effects inherent in the arts experience that add value to peoples lives. .
Conclusion The intrinsic benefits we have set out here, taken together, form the unique contributions of the arts to individual lives and collective experience. .
They include the context in which the arts education takes place (e.g., school, private lessons, community setting); the nature of the arts education (e.g., classes in art history or arts appreciation, classes in the various forms of doing or creating art); and the duration and frequency of the arts education. .
Cumulative Effects of Arts Participation As we noted earlier, some benefits may be realized at all levels of involvement in the arts; but the results of our analysis suggest that the higher-order benefits require sustained arts involvement. .
Once this learning process starts, even small incremental changes in the individuals level of involvement can bring high levels of benefits.8 Model C is the most consistent with the situation in which the arts are used to help individuals understand subjects other than the arts. .
A Broader View of the Public Benefits of the Arts We propose a view of the benefits of the arts that is broader than the current one in that it incorporates intrinsic and instrumental benefits and distinguishes among the ways in which the arts can affect the public welfare. .
For example, the arts can promote the development of learning skills that are of benefit to the societya fact attested to by societys willingness to supply these effects directly (e.g., by providing public education). .
The Central Role of Intrinsic Benefits in Arts Participation Again, individuals decisions to become involved in the arts are principally driven by the intrinsic benefits the arts provide. .
A demand-side approach would aim to build a market for the arts by cultivating the capacity of individuals to gain benefits from arts experiences. .
Similarly, research on the arts social effects points to community-based programs as the major locus of such benefits. .
The most promising way to develop audiences for the arts is to provide well-designed programs in the nations schools. .
However, the community level effects of the arts on communities are broader than this; indeed, we believe that the ways in which involvement with the arts can promote community development at a broader level are more important than they have been given credit for. .
Corresponding to these present and future benefits are the prestige and edification that the arts can provide to communities and the importance people attach to having the arts available for future generations (referred to as bequest value). .
The Missing Element: Intrinsic Benefits People are drawn to the arts not for their instrumental effects, but because the arts can provide them with meaning and with a distinctive type of pleasure and emotional stimulation. .
(As we discuss in Chapter Four, some of these benefits to communities are intrinsic benefits inherent to the arts experience.) .
And some works go beyond such personal effects, providing a common experience that draws people together and influences the way the community perceives itself, thereby creating intrinsic benefits that accrue to the public.1 Given the importance of intrinsic benefits, it is unfortunate that they have been so marginalized in both public discourse and research on the arts. .
One could argue that pleasure is the primary intrinsic value of arts experiences, both creative and aesthetic, and that it should be mentioned first. .
Experiences of the arts, according to many of these commentators, help build those ties. .
Contributions to the Public Sphere Besides providing these personal benefits, some of which, as we have noted, also have public value, works of art provide two critical public benefits: they create bonds among people and they sometimes provide a voice for entire communities. .
The best mentors are those who are deeply engaged in some form of art and want to share their enthusiasm. .
At some point, however, the individual begins to view the arts not simply as a pleasurable way to occasionally spend time, but as an important component of his or her identity (much the same way that individuals view hobbies or sports). .
By their nature, these organizations tend to concentrate on arts experiences that are of particular interest to their communities. .
Based on key concepts in the aesthetics literature, we chose works of philosophy that address important aspects of the experience of art, such as the role of emotion or cognition in aesthetic judgment, the ways aesthetic experiences can shape an individuals moral understanding, and, likewise, how such experiences can help develop the sympathetic imagination so important in a democratic, pluralistic society. .
Dance therapy typically involves rhythmic movement to music to foster physical or emotional rehabilitation. .
Coming together with other people committed to the same arts organization, supporting the same project or arts festival, starting up a new groupthese all provide an ideal set of activities for building a sense of community and generating social capital. .
The benefits it examines fall into two general categories: Promotion of social interaction among community members, creating a sense of community identity and helping to build social capital at the community level. .
These activities build social and leadership skills and involve people in the civic life of their communities. .
It is clear that such skills and civic involvement can contribute to the collective capacity of communities to address their own problems. .
Once social cohesion forms, it does more than create a sphere of social life and identity within the community; it also influences the willingness of community members to act for the common good. .
Volunteering, organizing an arts group, serving on a board, and other forms of stewardship are important ways to build community organizational capacity, identify and develop leaders, and engender a variety of skills needed for community action. .
Theoretical Insights on Cognitive Benefits We selected works that would enable us to (1)identify the key components of the learning process and (2) discuss how the arts and arts participation can trigger cognitive benefits. .
This review thus focuses more on determining how the arts promote learning and learning skills than on presenting a general theory of learning and human cognition. .
Factors Behind Sustained Arts Involvement We have indicated that a wide range of benefits can be created through involvement in the arts, but that many of these benefitsparticularly those most often cited by arts advocatesrequire a process of sustained involvement. .
The quality-of-life studies stress measures of good mental and physical health and concentrate on the ability of arts involvement to delay the loss of mental acuity. .
Because this policy emphasis is founded not on the need to support a particular sector of the arts but, rather, on the need to promote private and public benefits of the arts, it is more likely to gain broad-based support. .
Despite this limitation, however, we thought it best to search widely for concepts that might help explain how the arts transmit various benefits. .
Current arguments for private and public investment in the arts emphasize the potential of the arts for serving broad social and economic goals. .
There are three principal categories of economic benefits: direct benefits (i.e., those that result from the arts as an economic activity and thus are a source of employment, tax revenue, and spending); indirect benefits (e.g., attraction of individuals and firms to locations where the arts are available); and a variety of public-good benefits (e.g., the availability of the arts, the ability to have the arts available for the next generation, and the contribution the arts make to a communitys quality of life). .
They are said to be good for business and a stimulus to the tourist industry and thus to local economies. .
These benefits hinge on the attraction the arts offer to particular classes of workers (skilled) and firms (high value-added), an attraction that strengthens the local economy and promotes economic development (Florida, 2002). .
The literature on direct benefits emphasizes how individual consumer choices, when considered in the aggregate, build demand for the arts and thus, in turn, stimulate the growth of the local economy. .
This model is consistent with an activity-based relationship in which the greater the level of activity (e.g., the more tickets sold), the higher the level of economic benefits to the local community. .
Third, the arts can provide a range of benefits to the public as a whole (i.e., to both those involved in the arts and those not involved in the arts), such as increasing economic growth and social capital. .
Insights on Community-Level Social Benefits Typically, when arts advocates refer to the community-level benefits of the arts, they are referring to economic benefits. .
This body of literature includes: (1) studies of the role that the arts as an industry play in the local economy (including studies of the multiplier effects of the arts industry), (2) studies of how the presence of the arts promotes local economic development by attracting selective classes of workers and firms, and (3) studies of the nonfinancial benefits of the arts (the arts as a public good). .
From this perspective, the arts are important both as a source of demand for arts products and as a source of employment for local workers. .
Individual consumers demand for the arts, for example, stimulates art organizations and commercial firms to meet that demand. .
The economic effects of local arts activities are not limited to direct contributions to the consumption of arts products and to the employment generated by arts firms, however. .
Employees of arts organizations, as well as the arts organizations themselves, purchase a variety of non-arts goods and services, which results in more spending and more jobs in the economy overall. .
Thus, the arts sector benefits the local economy through employment and purchases in the arts sector and it produces a secondary effect through its role in stimulating economic activity in the non-arts sector. .
In other words, the arts produce economic benefits not only for those who are directly involved in the arts as producers or consumers, but also for those who are not directly involved in the artsthrough the multiplier effect. .
In general, the literature suggests that the higher the fraction of total arts spending that comes from tourists or other visitors to a local area, the more that spending will represent an addition to the local economy. .
Thus, local communities whose arts infrastructure attracts visitors from outside the local area will have higher multiplier effects. .
Since such workers are much sought after by the types of firms that local communities desire to attract (e.g., firms that pay high salaries, are often environmentally clean, and add prestige to the local economy), a strong arts community can promote local economic development. .
Moreover, this dynamic compounds itself in that the highly skilled workers will consume the arts, and the high-value firms will support the arts to continue being able to attract these kinds of workers. .
The net effect, therefore, is that a healthy arts sector helps trigger a virtuous cycle of economic growth: The arts sector attracts the types of workers who spend money on the arts and pay taxes, and these workers are the ones that desirable firms (which create good jobs and pay taxes) need in order to prosper. .
Volunteers in the arts, working together toward a shared objectivewhether the task is constructing sets, raising funds, giving tours, or stuffing envelopeshave the opportunity to develop ties and bonds and a commitment to the organization. .
Those whose predominant mode is stewardship will develop their management and technical skills and their ties to specific arts organizations by volunteering, donating, and organizing. .
Their response was to emphasize the instrumental benefits of the arts: They said the arts promote important, measurable benefits, such as economic growth and student learning, and thus are of value to all Americans, not just those involved in the arts. .
Such benefits are instrumental in that the arts are viewed as a means of achieving broad social and economic goals that have nothing to do with art per se. .
Those who continue to be involved seek arts experiences because they find them stimulating, uplifting, challengingthat is, intrinsically worthwhilewhereas those who participate in the arts infrequently tend to participate for extrinsic reasons (such as accompanying someone to an arts event). .
That case has since evolved into an argument that the arts produce benefits economic growth, education, and pro-social behaviorthat all Americans (not just those involved in the arts) recognize as being of value. .
Despite some major problems with this body of literature, the studies do offer evidence suggesting that the arts can produce public benefits at both the individual and the community level. .
Creating Benefits to Communities Social Benefits The Appendix presents a framework for understanding how social and economic benefits are linked to arts experiences. .
Similarly, the comparative advantage that an arts-rich environment provides for stimulating local economic development could also be provided by other types of local amenities (say, a pleasant climate or a location along a seashore). .
Indeed, this possibility could help explain why communities with well-known arts institutions may get more return for their arts spending than communities without such institutions do. .
It also recognizes the central role intrinsic benefits play in generating all benefits, and the importance of developing policies that ensure the benefits of the arts are realized by greater numbers of Americans. .
Community-based arts programs, if well designed and executed, could also be an effective way to introduce youth to the arts, but they tend to be severely limited in resources. .
First, since few people will dispute that something which promotes economic growth has clear public benefits, an economic argument for the arts is a particularly useful starting place for convincing those who are not already supporters of the arts to become such. .
Indirect economic benefits are those that result when the arts attract individuals and firms to locations where the arts are available. .
This framework also gives us a structure for describing how the arts contribute to communities. .
Another means of facilitating early arts involvement is to tap into young peoples involvement in the commercial arts. .
For example, to the extent that community-level social benefits require the accumulation of a critical mass of local residents to become involved in the arts before social capital is formed within the community, the relationship between arts involvement and the generation of social capital will assume the form of increasing returns to scale. .
As we discuss in the next chapter, the arts community and cultural policymakers should renew their attention to these critical processes in order to bring more people into the kind of sustained involvement with the arts that can enhance their lives and enrich the public sphere. .
The empirical arguments for collective social benefits primarily focus on how the arts can build social capital. .
These concepts can build on the arts benefits literature on social capital. .
In other words, investment in culture is justified in terms of cultures ability to promote broad public policy objectives. .
These experiences give individuals new references that can make them more receptive to unfamiliar people, attitudes, and cultures. .
These experiences give us new references that enable us to become more receptive to unfamiliar people, attitudes, and cultures. .
They are even said to be a mechanism for urban revitalization. .
The literature on community-level social benefits focuses on two general categories: those benefits that promote social interaction among community members, create a sense of community identity, and help build social capital; and those that build a communitys organizational capacity through both the development of skills, infrastructures, leaders and other assets, and the more general process of people organizing and getting involved in civic institutions and volunteer associations. .
That exposure typically comes from arts education, community-based arts programs, and/or commercial entertainment. .
The literature on this topic focuses exclusively on such individuals desire to attend concerts and other performances and to visit galleries and museums, but that does not mean these individuals may not also be attracted to places where there are ample opportunities for hands-on participation in the arts (e.g., community theaters, ensembles). .
Music, dance, poetry, and visual arts have been used throughout the ages to mark significant events (birth, marriage, death, etc.), to express religious sentiments, and to capture both religious and secular narratives valued by the community. .
The magnitude of these benefits, and thus the arts contribution to the local economy as a whole, depends on the size of the multiplier effect. .
The enhancement comes through the development of local arts groups and leaders, through the promotion of cooperation among arts and non-arts groups, and through the more general process of people organizing and getting involved in civic institutions and volunteer associationsstructural assets that are essential for community mobilization and revitalization (Wali, Severson, and Longoni, 2002; Stern, 2000). .
Many commentators emphasize the appreciators active involvement in the creation of a work of arts meaning. .
These factors not only help shape the individuals attitudes toward arts participation, but also influence the likelihood that he or she will be exposed to the arts and the form that the exposure might take. .
In competing for financial support from both government and private foundations, the arts community is expected to focus on tangible results that have broad political backing, such as improved educational performance and economic development. .
As a general rule, the higher the level of benefits is, the higher the level of arts involvement must be to generate it. .
A New Approach We argue in this report for a new approach to building support for the arts, an approach based on a broader understanding of the benefits of arts involvement. .
This breadth of public support testifies to the extraordinary value our society places on the artsa positive view so widespread that it practically calls out for policies that can tap into it for strong grassroots support. .
This issue is particularly important in comparing how the arts compare with other ways to trigger these benefits. .
Intrinsic benefits, in contrast, are inherent in the arts experience itself and are valued for themselves rather than as a means to something else. .
In many regards, participating in the arts as a supporter, or steward, is the most direct route to many of the social benefits described above. .
In contrast, the indirect benefits of the arts are predicated on the attraction the arts hold for well-educated and talented people. .
This is one of the few areas in which empirical studies have successfully demonstrated benefits from specified arts involvement. .
We turn next to the intrinsic benefits that arise from the arts experience and are of value in and of themselves. .
It is in the ultimately satisfying exercise of these different mental capacities operating together to appreciate the rich relational properties of artworks that . . . the primary value of great works is to be found. .
But the most important factor is likely to be the quality of the individuals successive arts experiences. .
Instead, empirical studies of community-level social benefits tend to focus either on how the arts can build a sense of community or on how arts-related activities can help build a capacity for collective action. .
Cognitive Benefits Types of Benefits and Populations Studied Studies of cognitive benefits focus on the development of learning skills and academic performance in school-aged youth.1 .
They regularly challenge us and contribute to our intellectual growth by requiring us to be receptive to new experiences and to relate them to our own knowledge of the world. .
In this case, the benefits to the public arise from the collective effects that the arts have on individuals: Creation of social bonds. .
The strategies we recommend for building arts involvement would help make these experiences accessible to greater numbers of Americans. .
One of the implications of this view of art as a communicative experience is that one must experience a work of art to appreciate its value. .
Early exposure is often key to developing long-term involvement in the arts. .
The arts experience does not just engage the individuals emotions and intellect; it also is a social experience and often occurs in the company of others. .
Based on our study, we recommend a number of steps the arts community might take to redirect its emphasis, shifting it toward the promotion of satisfying arts experiences: Develop language for discussing intrinsic benefits. .
This immediate encounter becomes enriched by reflection upon it: the aesthetic experience is not limited to passive spectator-shipit typically stimulates curiosity, questioning, and the search for explanation. .
They also show up as secondary contributions to the local economy through the multiplier effect, which refers to induced, or spillover, benefits resulting from the additional (non-arts) economic activity (jobs and purchases) produced by economic activity in the arts sector. .
The cultural economics literature does not limit itself solely to the direct and indirect economic benefits of the arts by focusing on the types of quantitative economic benefits that result from increased employment and spending, higher tax revenues, and the ability of the arts to attract particular types of firms and workers and thus promote local economic development. .
Upon encountering the work, one is struck by something unprecedented and extraordinary in it, and one is often amazed by the feat of the creating artistand, as in music and drama, the performing artist as wellwho unleashes the expressive power of that specific medium. .
Community mobilization is important in this context in that successful collaboration in one area builds connections and trust and can facilitate collaboration on other, unrelated endeavors. .
This reflects the broad recognition among policymakers of the importance of economic growth and development to the public interest. .
Indeed, only by focusing on individual experience can one understand how individuals become drawn to the arts in the first place, how they develop sustained interest, and how they access many of the effects we have described. .

ARTICLE - CANDIDATE TRANSITION VARIABLES

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