aceUVi

It appears that Holden’s use of ‘cultural value’ might be most appropriately interpreted
not as an actual value that can be attributed to culture, but rather as a way
of thinking about value in relation to culture (Keaney 2006, 40). Indeed, Holden
frequently refers to cultural value as a framework, as in ‘The “cultural value”
framework helps people and organisations to understand themselves, articulate
their purposes and make decisions’ and ‘The language and conceptual framework
provided by “cultural value” tell us that publicly funded culture generates three
types of value’ (2006, 57 and 9-10).
RAND Corporation
K F McCarthy, E H Ondaatje, L Zakaras and A
Brooks, 2004, Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the
Debate About the Benefits of the Arts, RAND
Corporation.
When the Wallace Foundation commissioned the
RAND corporation to investigate the benefits that
result from the arts, McCarthy et al found that the
cultural sector in the US had experienced developments
that paralleled those in the UK in terms of
the pressure that cultural organisations felt to demonstrate
their contribution to broader economic and social objectives that often
had little to do with their cultural missions.
The RAND researchers conducted a comprehensive review of the benefits associated
with the arts, including cognitive, behavioural, health, social and economic
benefits, and various forms of intrinsic benefits. In writing their report, they consciously
avoided terms such as ‘values’ and ‘effects’ (though they admit that these
are more common in the literature on artistic experiences) in order to emphasise
the comparability of intrinsic and other forms benefits (37, note 1). The authors
acknowledge that the term ‘benefit’ may imply an outcome that is separable from
the experience itself, which, however, is not the case in the intrinsic benefits that
they discuss. A further drawback of the term ‘benefits’ is that it rules out the possibility
that the arts might also generate negative effects. Such an a priori exclusion
of negative outcomes might compromise the credibility of research findings as it
could imply advocacy oriented ‘evidence gathering’ to some readers.
McCarthy et al use the term ‘instrumental benefits’, when ‘the arts experience is
only a means to achieving benefits in non-arts areas’, which may also be achieved
by other (non-arts) means (3). By contrast, ‘intrinsic benefits’, as defined by
RAND, ‘refer to effects in the arts experience that add value to people’s lives’ (37).
To the extent that the added value to people’s lives increases their well-being,
Holden might count such benefits as economic values.
What has proven most valuable in the RAND study is that it explicitly recognises
‘that arts benefits—both instrumental and intrinsic—can have both private and
Framing the Conversation 44
UNDERSTANDING the value and impacts of cultural experiences