The Arts and Civic Engagement: Involved in Arts, Involved in Life
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GENERAL
The analysis is based on data from the 2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts. The figures demonstrate that arts participants are active people who volunteer, exercise, and go out to movies, concerts, and sporting events at higher rates than nonparticipants. This analysis does not attempt to show cause and effect between arts participation and volunteering, or between arts participation and the other leisure activities captured by the survey.
This brief describes arts participation, volunteering, and other leisure activities reported by the National Endowment for the Art's Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA). Conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, the 2002 survey supplemented the Current Population Survey, and interviewed 17,135 adults, ages 18 and older. The SPPA s response rate was 70%
Performing arts attendance pertains to classical or jazz concerts, operas, plays, musicals, or ballets. 'Literary reading'Â refers to reading one or more short stories, novels, plays, or poetry; non-readers reported not reading in any of those genres. All attendance and participation covered by the 2002 SPPA refers to the 12-month period ending August 2002. Approximately 31% of survey respondents attended performing arts events, 46% read literature and 68% listened to classical or jazz radio. There were 4,732 young adults (ages 18-34) in the sample population.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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