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Chapter 3. Measuring cultural participation
3.1 Towards a common approach for measuring cultural participation
It is not the purpose of this handbook to reiterate the advice contained in numerous basic texts
on survey design and statistics. Rather the present work should show where adaptation of such
general guidance is required in order to meet the specific requirements of a survey of cultural
participation.
Furthermore the 2009 UNESCO FCS (UNESCO-UIS, 2009) has suggested that the purpose of
cultural statistics is to capture national and sub-national cultural practices rather than impose a
universal standard on a topic which defines national and sub-national identities. Rather than
proposing a universal standard, the UIS aims to produce a common template that can be
adapted to different national and sub-national understandings of culture, including creative
industries, the arts, traditional practices, crafts, wellbeing and social cohesion.
In designing a survey, a balance needs to be struck among different factors:
� the precision of the question and the precision of the response;
� the interests of the commissioning agencies and the perception of the population (the
respondents);
� concepts of ‘culture’ and ‘cultural activities’ that are meaningful for different groups of the
population (depending on ethnic background and affiliation, gender, age, location, etc.);
� the need to match national specificities with the desire for cross-country comparison;
� the need to update definitions and activities and the desire for comparison of national
surveys over time;
� describing and understanding; and
� the will to deepen certain issues and the time and money constraints which limit the
scope, frequency and length of a survey.
While taking account of such complexity and the need to consider each specific case, it is
possible to define some of the core features for the measurement and understanding of cultural
participation as practical guidance for professionals and organizations responsible for designing
surveys.
It is also understood that lack of financial or political commitment often prevents the
implementation of a dedicated survey of cultural participation. Instead cultural specialists may be
faced with providing a limited number of questions for a module within an existing household
survey. In considering what these questions might be, it is recommended they look at some of
the basic questions of participation (e.g. how often taken part in/visited.....during the last [ref time
period for survey]). More detailed specifications of these and other alternative topics will be
found below.
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