Have you read a good book lately, seen a film at your local cinema, or visited a new exhibit at a museum? Have you sung with a choir, taken a painting class or started writing a novel? Have you uploaded a video to the internet or created a website? If so, you have been participating in culture. The assumption, then, is that through cultural participation you have been able to express yourself creatively, have been exposed to alternative perspectives, and may have even had opportunities to engage with people with different backgrounds, beliefs or values. In doing so, it might be expected that you would have (or gain) greater tolerance for differences and more respect for and trust in others and that you would acquire the capacity to engage more actively in democratic life.
This handbook is a resource for organizations interested in measuring cultural participation, as well as a tool for raising awareness among policymakers. To this end, Measuring Cultural Participation combines theoretical and practical aspects of methodology. This is a challenging undertaking –even more so considering the wide range of data available, research undertaken and the complexity involved in defining ‘cultural participation’ for national statistical systems and policies across the world.
Individuals access cultural goods and experiences in a myriad of ways. This cultural participation is linked to several areas of social and economic impact: social inclusion, education, innovation, well-being and health, and civic engagement. It can also be instrumental in tackling societal challenges from new angles, favouring resilience, skills creation, and prosocial behavioural changes. This chapter outlines why cultural participation is important for local development and should be viewed as a tool for policymakers in many fields, beyond cultural policy.
In 1976, the General Conference of UNESCO at its nineteenth session in Nairobi unanimously adopted the 'Recommendation on Participation by the People at Large in Cultural Life and their Contribution to It.' A precondition of participation is access to culture, which, according to the Recommendation, should be 'available to everyone, particularly through the creation of appropriate socio-economic conditions, for freely obtaining information, training, knowledge, and understanding, and for enjoying cultural values and cultural property'. This could be done to create a community.
