National Endowment for the Arts
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FY 2012 Grant Awards: Art Works: Research

Some details of the projects listed below are subject to change, contingent upon prior Endowment approval.

Panelists

Brown University
Providence, RI
$15,000
To support a study to identify the long-term social and cognitive impacts on children and teenagers who received music training. The research will examine results from a 50-year longitudinal data collection, the New England Family Study, to demonstrate the impacts of music training on teen and adult criminal behavior and other adverse social outcomes (e.g., substance use, low self-esteem), as well as long-term cognitive effects.   

Creative Alliance Milwaukee
Milwaukee, WI
$15,000
To support an inventory and analysis of datasets and definitions used to profile creative economies or industries.  The results will yield a “core” definition and dataset that national and local policymakers can adopt to understand the relationship of arts and cultural sectors to other creative industries. Also, the project seeks to place creative industries in a broader economic policy context.

Fordham University
New York, NY
$30,000
To support a study of the impact of arts programming on the social skills and mental health outcomes of at-risk youth. Data will be examined from two Florida programs that served youth who had been arrested or had received multiple suspensions from school. By comparing outcomes in youth who participated in arts programs with outcomes in youth who did not, this project will help fulfill a critical knowledge gap that may have consequences for youth intervention programs and greater public policy concerning at-risk populations.

Georgia Tech Research Corporation
Atlanta, GA
$15,000
To support a two-phase study investigating: (1) the value of time spent by Americans on arts-related activities, and (2) an analysis of the impacts of arts districts on neighborhood characteristics. The first phase of the study will examine activities such as the costs of traveling to and from arts events, based on data from the U.S. Department of Labor's American Time Use Survey and the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey. A second phase of the study will use a proprietary dataset to analyze the relationship between arts district clustering and the economic value and socioeconomic characteristics of U.S. neighborhoods.

Harvard University
Cambridge, MA
$17,000
To support a study of causal factors pertaining to the “birth” and “death” rates of arts and cultural institutions.  This project will analyze IRS Form 990s from nonprofit arts and cultural institutions in six urban centers to compare survival rates between 1989 and 2009. Among factors that will be explored are: size of organization; funding sources and levels; type of organization; location; and geographic concentration.  The resulting knowledge will contribute to  public understanding of factors related to the sustainability of a U.S. arts infrastructure.

National Dance Education Organization
Silver Spring, MD
$10,000
To support a project to identify, analyze, and summarize data that demonstrate the impact of dance education across multiple domains. The researchers will mine the Dance Education Literature and Research descriptive index, a database including 5,000 citations of dance education research from 1926 to the present. This meta-analysis will result in three separate research reports. The reports will describe the value of dance education as a learning modality for creative and critical thinking skills and social and emotional development.

University of Dayton
Dayton, OH
$10,000
To support a study of the relationship between arts engagement and quality of life, as reflected by economic well-being and civic engagement patterns. The study will examine data from several waves of the Current Population  Survey and its Survey of Public Participation in the Arts supplements in order to explore this relationship. Researchers will use factor analysis and structural equation modeling of survey variables to create constructs of economic well-being and civic engagement; logistic regression will be used to predict the impact of arts engagement on these constructs. Further, by differentiating between “traditional” and “customized” arts participation, the study will add a finer-grained analysis to complement existing research about the arts and civic engagement.

University of Georgia
Athens, GA
$15,000
To support a qualitative research analysis to generate a hypothesis about community-built practices to inform policies and programs. The term “community-built” describes a practice whereby artists and designers involve local volunteers in the design, organization, and construction of projects such as playgrounds, mosaic sculptures, murals, community gardens, and amphitheaters. Literature to be analyzed will include press articles, websites, and books written by members of the Community Built Association, founded in 1989. This research will expand knowledge of the arts by defining a new area of study within the fields of art and design.

University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, IL
$10,000
To support a study to examine the impact of arts exposure and artistic expression on society, including civic engagement and social tolerance. Using behavioral data collected from the General Social Survey -- a nationally representative sample of U.S. households -- the study will use multivariate analysis to test hypotheses about the impact of arts exposure on society and the impact of artistic expression on individual civil behavior.

University of Maryland at College Park
College Park, MD
$23,000
To support analysis of the cognitive, behavioral, and social outcomes of adolescents who study the arts in comparison with teenagers who do not. Analysis will be conducted with data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a multi-year study of American adolescents that tracked participants from adolescence through early adulthood. The arts and non-arts students will be compared in terms of their school engagement, psychological adjustment, delinquency, involvement in risky behaviors, and substance use during adolescence.

University of Texas at Arlington
Arlington, TX
$25,000
To support a cross-sectional analysis of 30 U.S. cities over three decades to identify neighborhood attributes driving location preferences for artists and artistic businesses. The use of multivariate time-series data and geospatial mapping will enable statistical methods to test a causal relationship between the presence of the arts and neighborhood development. The results could contribute to the development and refinement of social and economic policies that promote positive neighborhood change. 

University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX
$20,000
To support a study to examine current levels of diversity among arts boards and audiences, and identify factors associated with fostering or inhibiting greater board and audience diversity. This study will explore the Urban Institute's National Survey of Nonprofit Governance,a dataset of 476 arts, culture, and humanities organizations, as well as 4,639 nonprofit organizations in other fields of activity, thus allowing for comparative analysis. Arts organizations and their supporters increasingly have expressed a commitment to greater diversity. This study will provide arts organizations, funders, and policymakers with information to help them assess and improve strategies for achieving that goal.

Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN
$10,000
To support an analysis of the relationship between creative practice and subjective well-being in individuals studied by three national surveys. Using data from the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project, the DDB Needham Life Style Survey, and a Teagle Foundation-funded study of students with double-majors, researchers will explore potential correlations between art-making and quality of life. The resulting report will offer a theoretical basis for understanding links between creative practice and subjective well-being, and it will test those links empirically.  Following this study, cultural policymakers will have a better opportunity to align the arts with public policy about individual and community vitality.

Williams College
Williamstown, MA
$25,000
To support a study that will examine whether a causal link exists between cultural activities and economic prosperity, and which investigates the tendency of arts and cultural organizations to cluster in specific neighborhoods. This study uses two novel methodologies -- from other, non-arts sectors -- to establish a causal relationship between increases in per-capita arts program expenditures and long-run gains in Gross Domestic Product within urban areas. The resulting evidence, and successful use of the methodologies themselves, will enhance public understanding of the arts' economic impact.


Total Art Works: Research Grants Awarded: 14
Total Art Works: Research Dollars Awarded: $240,000


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