The first national survey on cultural participation in Portugal: exploring social and professional backgrounds

ABSTRACT

Portugal undertook the first national survey of cultural practices (2020) with support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The present paper describes the contemporary cultural eclecticism in keeping with the analysis of key indicators for the cultural consumption of cinema, live performances, theatre, dance, circus, festivals, and local events. In line with previous European Survey conclusions, the first Portuguese National Survey results demonstrate how the younger and better educated, alongside those raised by educated parents, display “cultural omnivorism”. The main findings converge around how the influence of social backgrounds, positions in the professional structure and class identities, are shaping cultural consumption as pointed out by Reeves in his cross-national European study.

KEYWORDS:

• National survey
• cultural participation
• social and professional backgrounds
• omnivores

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 A preliminary experiment was carried out in 1985 in Portugal (Gaspar, 1985).

2 These cultural participation indicators are available from an open access data base: http://www.apis.ics.ulisboa.pt/.

3 See the Inequality Observatory set up by the CIES-ISCTE at the University Institute of Lisbon.

4 In keeping with the frequency and intensity of the practices, I attributed the following points to respondents: for all cultural practices (except for cinema): 3 = once per month or more; 2 = three or more times per year but not every month; 1 = once or twice per year; 0 = never go. For cinema: 3 = once per week or more; 2 = once or various times per month but not every week; 1 =  once or various times per year but not every month; 0 = never go. Subsequently, I established a new variable that resulted from summing up the new cultural practices in order to obtain the “cumulative index of cultural practices”.

5 In this survey, we also asked about online practices, during the pandemic. The results showed that 26% of respondents consumed films and shows (recorded) online, achieving robust results, very similar to the questionnaire carried out in France (Jonchery & Lombardo, 2020). However, contrary to the French case, for older Portuguese this is still a very restricted practice (2%). It was individuals with more education and higher incomes who engaged in this type of cultural consumption. Another line of future research allowed us to discuss the inequalities in digital consumption in the Portuguese case.

6 In the regression model, the variable “own education level” was operationalized in three categories: lower (less than 3rd cycle and 3rd cycle); medium (secondary); top (university). The variable “higher level of parental education” started by combining the mother's and father's level of education and allowing the highest level of education to prevail. This also adopted the categories lower, medium, and higher. Regarding socio-professional class, this study applied questions in which respondents describe themselves: what work did you do in the last seven days; if you have a paid job; are you self-employed, employed; or do you work in a family business; how many employees do you have? Finally, describe in detail the professional activity you carry out.

7 Statistical significance analysis (chi-square test) indicates that the relationships between the variables are significant except for the association between going to the cinema and the sex/gender of respondents.

8 The chi-square test reports the trends in the descriptive analysis with statistical significance in the variables age, level of education, household income, socio-professional class and cultural orientation.

9 Following the main trends in our descriptive analysis, the statistical significance (chi-square) tests return relevant results from cross-referencing all the variables presented, including cultural orientation to “omnivorism”. However, attending live concerts does not correspond to the respondent household income variable.

10 See the Portuguese National Plan for Arts: https://www.pna.gov.pt/.

Additional information

Funding

The proofreading of this paper was provided by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) – Foundation for Science and Technology – through the funding of the R&D Unit UIDB/03126/2020. This research work was supported by the Calouste Gulbernkian Foundation (Lisbon), which is gratefully acknowledged.

Notes on contributors

Vera Borges

Vera Borges is a Research Fellow of Sociology and Professor at CIES-Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology, at ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon. She is a sociologist with interests in art and culture, artistic organisations and labour markets, and cultural public policies. Among her international articles are The transformative role of Angels’ cultural organisations under austerity (Cultural Trends, 2020); Emerging Patterns of Artistic Organizations in Portugal: A Three Case Studies analysis (Sociologia del Lavoro, 2020), and Mapping Cultural Policy in Portugal: From incentives to crisis (International Journal of Cultural Policy, 2018).