Mapping Cultural Participation in Chicago - Cultural Policy Center

will be about 5 percent lower in the community with the larger share of African-Americanresidents.We find no such association between the percentage of Latino residentsin an area and our measure of unexpected arts participation.These results imply that ethnicity is a factor that can account for some of the lowerrates of arts participation in large organizations for predominantly African-Americanareas of the city. However, they do not apply to Latino areas; in these neighborhoods,participation in large arts organizations is about what we would expect, given theseareas’ socioeconomic characteristics.Explanations of Patterns in Unexpected ParticipationNo simple explanation can account for the patterns of variation.Our data shows that areas with higher concentrations of African-Americans are likelyto have lower participation densities in the large arts organizations than areas withsimilar socioeconomic characteristics but larger concentrations of whites or Latinos.However, we do find that there are some predominantly African-American communitieswith unexpectedly high participation densities and others with unexpectedly low artsparticipation densities. They are unexpectedly low in the New City, Englewood, and WestEnglewood communities on the South Side of Chicago. The census tracts in thesecommunities are frequently shaded green and blue, indicating that arts participation isbelow expected levels. So although these are relatively low income communities, artsparticipation is still lower than we would expect, given their socioeconomic attributes.Conversely, census tracts in the predominantly African-American neighborhoods ofAvalon Park, and Calumet Heights community areas to the east, often are shaded inyellow, orange, and red. This indicates that these areas have arts participation densitiesthat either match (yellow) or exceed (orange or red) what we would expect based onthese areas’ socioeconomic characteristics. In predominantly African-American areas,differences in ethnic composition cannot be a factor accounting for these differences inour measure of unexpected participation. Moreover, since we have taken into accountdifferences in these areas’ socioeconomic characteristics, other unmeasured attributesof these areas and the people in them are likely at play.Modeling Participation: Does Ethnicity Still Matter? 41