Arts attendance among first-year American college students

Abstract

Though many studies explore arts participation at the P-12 level and attendance at the adult level, there remains little to no exploration on who attends arts events throughout college. Being an egalitarian period of life where on-campus arts programing remains either free or at a reduced cost, college may be one of the last areas to cultivate long-term consumers of the arts. This study uses a sample of 7,857 students from the Wabash National Study on Liberal Arts Education to understand student attendance of the arts during the first-year of college. The study tests how elements of socio-demographic characteristics, human capital, habitus, and social capital influence student attendance of arts programing. The study discusses ideas concerning future research of arts attendance and improvement of attendance while in college.

Keywords:

• Fine arts
• performance arts
• higher education
• first-year experience
• arts attendance

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a grant from the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College to the Center for Research on Undergraduate Education at the University of Iowa. The author would like to thank Eleanor A. Lingo for her continued support.

Notes

1 For this paper, the term arts refer to a number of fine and performing arts including art exhibits or galleries, dance productions, drama, and other theatrical productions.

2 Supplementary analyses indicate the relationship between sometimes and often levels of attendance and parental education lose significance only with the inclusion of all controls. The constructs surrounding human capital, habitus, and social capital do not mediate the relationship on their own.