Young People in Out-of-School Arts Education: The Influence of the Proximity of the Provision on Their Participation Decision

Abstract

In this article we explore the influence of the geographical proximity of out-of-school arts education provision on the individual decisions of children and youngsters to enroll in an arts education course. The distance between the homes of the Belgian students in compulsory education and the nearest offering of out-of-school arts education (a network called Part-Time Arts Education [PTAE]) is calculated using population-wide administrative data. The results show a negative and nonlinear relation between distance and enrollment that affects young children in particular. Students with low socioeconomic status (SES) are not affected more by this factor than are other students. While students with a low SES live proportionally more in big cities, which are areas with a greater density of arts education provision, our analysis shows they still participate less in such programs than other students. When students with a low SES do participate, it is not in a course significantly nearer to their area of residence. As the distance to a specific PTAE course increases, only a small percentage of students are willing to substitute another course of study that is spatially closer. Therefore, distance is a barrier that is hard to overcome and often closes off the opportunity to participate in arts education. These findings have implications for policy decisions on the establishment of new educational facilities for arts education and on incentives to tackle the costs linked with traveling to art courses.

Keywords:

• arts education
• participation decision
• proximity
• travel distance

Notes

1. This ratio is used in administrative software to calculate travel distance in the construction sector (Bouwsoft; http://www.useitgroup.com/).

2. For 5,935 PTAE students aged six to eleven (born 1988–2003) and for 1,855 PTAE students aged twelve to seventeen (born 1992–1997), there was no merge possible with the dataset of the students in compulsory education. Consequently, 7,790 records out of 106,902 could not be used for our analysis. Possible explanations for this mismatch is the presence of foreign students enrolled in arts education in Belgium (Flanders).

3. Due to the dense network of postal codes, the average surface area of a postal code is 25 km².

4. The degree of functional urbanization reflects the variety of available “functions” in a postal code and how they affect the environment. These so-called functions are the commercial function of a municipality (based on the purchasing habits of the population), the school function (based on the school-going population), and the work function (based on the active population). The degree of morphological urbanization reflects the space that is taken up by people, materialized by their buildings and infrastructure. This variable is therefore based upon population density and the proportion of the surface area that is built up.

5. Notwithstanding the fact that the distance between home place and the chosen training location is significantly greater for students in secondary education than for students in primary education. This is no surprise, as, as mentioned earlier, students in secondary education are less affected by the proximity of the PTAE provision, possibly because they are more mobile at that age (having a driver's license, for instance).