Mapping Cultural Participation in Chicago - Cultural Policy Center

Ethnic, Diverse, andOther InstitutionsThe previous analysis considers only participation in the twelve arts organizationswith revenue more than $8 million. It shows that socioeconomic characteristics aremajor determinants of participation in Chicago’s large arts and culture institutions.Furthermore, over and above these factors, the racial or ethnic composition of thecommunity is related to participation.The objectives of this study also include examining participation in Chicago’s otherarts institutions. A major question is whether these other institutions reach a differentpopulation than do the largest institutions. We are interested in contrasting thecharacteristics of their audiences with the audiences of the largest institutions,especially in terms of the geographical distribution of the participants.We collected data from forty-nine additional institutions; sixteen of them werespecifically targeted, the other thirty-three responded to our general invitation toparticipate. However, these forty-nine institutions do not constitute a representativesample of Chicago’s arts institutions. Therefore, we cannot generalize our findingsbeyond the specific institutions included.We consider three groups of organizations: those that direct their efforts toward aspecific ethnic population [Ethnic]; those that direct their efforts toward a deliberatelydiverse population [Diverse]; and other smaller institutions [Other].Definitions:Ethnically/culturally specific institutions [Ethnic Institutions]: Organizationswhose mission statements explicitly identify their primary purpose asrepresenting and/or targeting a particular ethnic or cultural group.Ethnically/culturally diverse institutions [Diverse Institutions]: Organizationswhose mission statements explicitly identify their primary purpose asrepresenting and/or targeting multiple ethnic or cultural groups.Other smaller institutions [Other Institutions]: Organizations whose budgetsare below $8 million and are neither explicitly Diverse nor Ethnic.Maps 15a, 15b, and 15c present the distributions for Chicago. Once again, red representsthe highest density of participation and blue the lowest. (The institutions in each categoryare listed in Appendix I.) It is clear that the audiences in these institutions are distributeddifferently across Chicago than the audiences for the larger institutions displayed inMap 8.It is possible, however, that even though the audience distribution is different, theaudiences themselves are not; it is possible that the smaller institutions simply attractthe part of the audiences of the largest institutions that live in their own areas ofinfluence. As our database contains the address of each household, we can checkdirectly whether this is the case.Not only do the diverse and ethnic institutions engage a different audience thanthe large organizations, but the additional audience they reach is from arelatively untapped population.42