Many first learn an appreciation of the arts in school, a recent study forming part of the Thompson Rivers University-based inquiry into the quality of life in small cities shows.
The study, part of a five-year research initiative funded by a $1 million Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Community-University Research Alliance (CURA) grant, also found that while people most frequently think of painting and/or drawing when they hear the word ‘arts’ or the phrase ‘artistic activity,’ the most frequently mentioned “most important” arts-related activity in the total sample and in each community was music in some form, particularly listening to music and singing alone. Singing in a group, the researchers discovered, gave participants a relatively low level of satisfaction.
Based on a random selection of 2000 households in each of five British Columbia communities: Comox Valley, Kamloops, Nanaimo, Port Moody and Prince George, the study’s 10-page questionnaire investigated 66 distinct arts-related activities and examined the associations between respondents’ time invested in and satisfaction obtained from each kind of activity.
“We have some new and valuable things to say about the importance of arts-related activities,” said CURA research partner Alex C. Michalos, Chancellor of the University of Northern British Columbia and TRU honorary degree recipient, and co-investigator P. Maurine Kahlke of UNBC’s Institute for Social Research and Evaluation.
Their study, “Impact of Arts-Related Activities on the Perceived Quality of Life,” is one of 20 projects aimed at creating a small-cities quality of life index and is the first survey using specific research techniques in the context of a wide variety of information about arts-related activities and the perceived quality of life. Of the 10,000 total questionnaires distributed, a total of 1027 were returned. Nearly two-thirds of all respondents were female, with a mean age of 53 and a mean household income of $72,799. Fifty percent of the total sample reported that they were in excellent or very good health.
“It is probably best to regard the total and individual community samples as merely representative of some British Columbian residents who had some interest in the arts,” explained the researchers. Our findings regarding the comparative advantage of arts-related activities are mixed, complicated and modest at best.”
Nevertheless, “because no other study has considered as broad an array of questions concerning as broad an array of arts-related activities, with as large a sample, we have good reasons for taking our results very seriously,” they said.
Although we appreciate all arts-related activities as important expressions of humanity, this is not a work of advocacy and we have no more interest in boosting the arts with our research than Anaxagoras had in moving the planets with his astronomical investigations.”
In April and May 2007 a province-wide survey was undertaken to obtain a representative sample for the province, with results currently being calculated.
Michalos will present his findings at 6pm this Friday at TRU’s “Last Best West or Just Like the Rest? Interrogating Western Canadian Identities Conference in room 130 of the university’s Campus Activity Centre. The session will also be webcast via the CURA website in collaboration with BCcampus at: www.smallcities.ca
For more information, please contact Dr. W.F. Garrett-Petts (Research Director of the Small Cities CURA, TRU) at 250-828-5248 or petts@tru.ca or:
Dr. Alex C. Michalos (Director, Institute for Social Research and Evaluation, UNBC) at 250-962-8719 or michalos@unbc.ca.
