The dissection of the amateur: an empirical analysis of the determinants of active cultural participation

In contrast to the amount of research dealing with the causes and consequences of receptive highbrow participation in the arts, little research has focused on active artistic participation. Our aim is to introduce active participation into cultural participation research by analyzing the mechanisms that influence active participation in the arts. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theorem of social reproduction and DiMaggio’s claims on cultural mobility, we focus on the relative influences of parental milieu vs. personal accumulated capital on active participation in the arts. Additionally, we query the possible influence of art education. Results based on stepwise multinominal logistic regression analyses on representative population data for Flanders (N=3146) yield support for both Bourdieu’s theorem on social reproduction and DiMaggio’s model of cultural mobility. We find a clear influence of the cultural milieu in which one was raised and a net effect of individually accumulated cultural and social capital. Surprisingly, the influence of educational capital disappeared, after controlling for parental cultural milieu, personal capital accumulation and the influence of taking art classes during high school. Socio-economic status of the family in which one was raised and personal economic capital prove to have no negative impact on the odds of engaging actively in the arts. Art education during high school has a positive effect on the chances of actively engaging in the arts. Moreover, we observe a cumulative impact of both receptive and active arts instructing during high school. Interaction effects between social class indicators and art education are examined. Implications of these findings for further research are discussed