Written evidence submitted by People United
Evidence for the impact of participatory arts on community engagement
1. Organisation and Authors
People United is a creative laboratory and participatory arts charity. Working in schools, communities and cultural venues, we explore how the arts can inspire kindness, community and social change. We do this through artist commissions, place-based projects, rigorous research and supporting others to make positive change in their own settings.
The bank of quantitative and qualitative research that we have gathered over the last 10 years provides empirical support for the concept that arts engagement can foster kindness: kind attitudes, intentions and behaviour. Our recent research report: Changing the World through Arts and Kindness shows how the arts can play a practical and imaginative role in building a kinder and more caring society. This evidence links to the questions in this inquiry regarding how the arts can foster community engagement and boost social impact.
Tina Corri is Chief Executive of People United and previously spent 20 years working in museums, galleries, heritage and learning settings. Sarah Fox is Head of Creative Programmes at People United and is an expert in socially engaged arts projects and community engagement. www.peopleunited.org.uk
2. Executive summary
• Participatory artistic interventions are particularly powerful strategies for promoting community connectedness and engagement in schools and in communities, increasing empathy, connections, kindness intention, self-efficacy and reducing bias.
• Community-led participatory arts interventions increase community engagement and community connectedness in deprived communities.
3. Evidence
3.1. Background
At People United we specialise in developing and commissioning participatory arts programmes designed to bring people together and break down barriers. Importantly, we are committed to research and evaluation, and therefore have worked with our long-term academic partner (University of Kent) for over a decade. Here we present independent academic evidence which shows that participatory arts interventions can promote community connectedness and engagement, including in communities with low arts engagement and areas of multiple deprivation.
Most recently (2015-2017) we tested the impact of a participatory arts programme in Newington, Kent. Built mostly in the 1950s, Newington has had a reputation of being a low-skilled, highly deprived neighbourhood with labels such as ‘difficult’ and ‘troubled’ and with residents perceived as having no aspirations. 46.9% of children living in Newington are living in poverty. (End Child Poverty, January 2018).
The aim of the participatory arts programme was to develop connections within a fragmented community and with the wider community, and inspire and support people do something positive for others. Working collaboratively with a pro-active community group, the arts programme involved collecting and celebrating good news stories about and from the community through a range of arts activities. Working with all age groups, this involved the work of an artist-in-residence, exhibitions curated by residents, and programmed events through a high quality community arts festival.
3.2 Results
Our academic partners conducted two studies: one in the local school and one in the local community.
First, the researchers conducted a quantitative study in the local primary school in Newington. They surveyed children before and after the arts project. They also surveyed children from two schools that had not taken part in the arts project. In total, 254 children age 7 to 11 took part. They used validated questionnaires to measure children’s sense of community connectedness and community engagement.
The results showed that the arts-based school project significantly increased children’s’ community engagement and buffered against reductions in children’s feelings of community connectedness.
Second, they conducted a quantitative evaluation among adults in the local community in Newington. They designed the evaluation to compare participants from Newington with those from a control town. They surveyed 190 participants just after the first arts-based community festival in Newington, Best Fest. They used validated questionnaires to measure people’s sense of community connectedness and engagement.
The results showed that community connectedness and engagement were both significantly higher in Newington than in the control town.
The qualitative work undertaken added depth, nuance and context about the community impact.
3.3. Conclusions
• Over the past ten years our academic partners have evaluated the impact of participatory arts interventions in schools and in communities and they consistently find that participatory arts interventions significantly increase community connectedness and community engagement.
• We have provided an example of a specific participatory arts project which promoted community connectedness and engagement in a deprived and fragmented community in Kent. Our work demonstrates that participatory arts interventions can increase empathy and motivations to help others; create connections between people and strengthen people’s beliefs in their own abilities to make change happen (self-efficacy). In addition, our evidence shows that these effects persist across a range of different artforms, and over a sustained amount of time.
• One of the reasons the work has been successful is not just because it is participatory arts practice (this can be good or bad for a variety of reasons), but because of how it was delivered. We create asset-based projects work with specific aims, around what will work artistically and socially, building a sense of agency and positive emotions for participants, as well as new perspectives and skills. (It does not happen by accident or automatically).
• Our work shows that the arts have unique properties that enable change to take place, from engaging emotions and embracing failure, to challenging the status quo and building connections. Together these can be catalysts for the desire to help others and the capacity to make choices and act independently to fulfil that desire.
• Our work highlights the potential for a real shift: from engagement to understanding, from agency to action. Through the arts we can help to create kinder schools and more caring communities.
• For further evidence please see this People United paper (arts and kindness theory); this People United report (theory in practice) and this British Academy report.
4. Recommendations
• This evidence shows that the arts have a pivotal role to play in how our society develops and how communities can engage with and care for one another. Therefore, there should be substantial social and economic gains from investing in the arts, particularly if policies and investments make the arts more widely available for all people.
• This evidence shows that high quality participatory arts projects can promote positive community outcomes. We propose that any local action aimed at growing community connectedness and engagement, (whether organised by practitioners, community members, or policy-makers), would benefit from involving and listening to artists and arts organisations as part of the planning process, or by incorporating some of the ‘key arts ingredients’ outlined here in chapter 4 (p38-43) e.g. sharing positive stories and finding ways to demonstrate commonalities between people.
• This evidence suggests that the diversity of artistic practice and modes of participation is important, with multiple ‘entry points’ enabling different people to get involved at a level that suits them. In regard to diversity of access, we recommend that policies and investment in the arts should promote holistic approaches combining a range of activities as an effective way to achieve social outcomes.
• This evidence suggests that the positive social outcomes span across different artforms and time. The processes leading to personal and community development are complex but with the right ingredients in place, arts interventions can have a transformative effect for people and communities. We recommend that investment in longer-term collaborative artists and participant projects, with robust quantitative and qualitative longitudinal research, could help the sector to better understand how the arts, psychology and civil society research links with wellbeing, social cohesion and active citizenship, finding connections between particular artforms and particular social outcomes. If delivered on a larger scale, arts-based community interventions could help to build more socially harmonious communities nationally.
• This evidence suggests that the arts – and its unique ability to help us to stand in someone else’s shoes, can help us to create more kind and caring school environments. We suggest that the arts form a key and consistent part of the school curriculum.
February 2018