Journal of Cultural Economics 22: 87–98, 1998.

87
© 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Hope for the Future? Early Exposure to the Arts

and Adult Visits to Art Museums

CHARLES M. GRAY∗
Graduate School of Business, University of St. Thomas, Minneapolis, MN 55403, U.S.A.

Abstract. This paper employs logistic regression to explore the relationship between art lessons
and art history and appreciation classes as a child with adult visits to art museums. The regression-
based technique allows for control of other influences such as demographic indicators of tastes and
preferences. The results are generally consistent with the hypothesis that early exposure results in
later participation, although exposure seems to have strongest influence in the pre- and post-teen
years.

Key words: art museums, art appreciation

1. Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to use logistic regression to explore whether and to
what extent early exposure to the arts affects participation as an adult. The hy-
potheses formulated below are tested with data derived from the 1997 survey of
public participation in the arts (SPPAs), wherein respondents were queried about
their participation in seven “core” or “benchmark” arts, as well as other types of arts
and leisure time activity.1 The focus here is upon visits to art museums. Selected
questions from the survey instrument are included in Appendix A.
The question of early exposure, especially through the schools, has substantial
policy importance. If it is widely felt that the arts generate external benefits (as
discussed in the next section) and, further, that early exposure promotes partici-
pation, then society may well stand to gain from a policy of supporting early arts
education, including art lessons and art history and appreciation classes. The belief
in the importance of arts education is supported by prior research efforts and by
the popular media (Balfe and Heine, 1988; Pankratz and Mulcahy, 1989; Morrison
and West, 1986; Orend, 1989; Bergonzi and Smith, 1996).
The U.S. National Endowment for the Arts sponsored Surveys of Public Par-
ticipation in the Arts in 1982, 1985, 1992, and 1997. The Bureau of the Census,
U.S. Department of Commerce, conducted the first three surveys based on nation-
wide samples designed to be broadly representative of the U.S. population. As an
economy measure, the earlier surveys were conducted in conjunction with another
ongoing Census activity, the National Crime Survey. It is not known whether or to
what extent the joint and disparate survey questions may have biased the results.
88 CHARLES M. GRAY

The 1997 survey, which was conducted by a private research organization, focused
exclusively upon the arts, and the nationwide sample was again designed to be
representative (Loomis et al., 1998).
The next section develops the economic perspective on the arts and on tastes
and preferences. The explicit hypotheses are developed in the following section.
Then follow tests and policy implications, with conclusions bringing up, of course,
the rear.

2. Arts as Economic Goods

In most markets, the forces of supply and demand interact to bring about a reason-
ably efficient allocation of goods and services. Demand reflects the willingness
and ability of consumers to purchase the good in question. The willingness to
purchase reflects tastes and preferences, which are indicated to a large extent by
such demographic characteristics as education, age, gender, race, and other taste
determining variables.2 Ability to purchase is typically indicated by household
income. Likewise, supply reflects the willingness and ability of a seller to make
the good available and is largely determined by the costs of production. Since the
focus here is on the arts participant, those elements which influence demand will
bear closest scrutiny.
Arts markets are widely felt to be subject to one or more types of market failure,
including failure of the exclusion principle and generation of external benefits.3
Museum exhibitions, for example, have elements of both private and public goods.
Those who refuse to pay an admission fee can be excluded, assuming the display
space venue has the means of physical exclusion. But most exhibits entail non-rival
consumption, at least up to the capacity of the gallery, or perhaps of the museum as
a whole. This means that one person’s participation may not detract substantially
from that of another, assuming that any blockage of view is only temporary.4 Their
mutual attendance may in fact enhance each other’s experience insofar as con-
versations among viewers stimulate appreciation. Furthermore, future generations,
who have no voice in current markets, may benefit from maintenance, or even
expansion, of the arts. In these ways, participation, fostered by early exposure to
the arts, generates benefits for other current, as well as future, participants.

2.1. TRENDS IN ATTENDANCE

Table I indicates trends in visits to art museums for the four survey periods, as well
as frequency of attendance where available. The percentage of respondents report-
ing attendance at an art museum in the prior 12 months has risen over the survey
periods from 27.1 to 34.9. One must be cautious in interpreting this trend, due to
an inexplicable decline from 1982 to 1985 and a rebound since. The number of
annual visits, available for only the last two surveys, has held steady at an average
of 3.3 per year.
HOPE FOR THE FUTURE? 89
Table I. Visits to art museums, 1982–1997

1982 1985 1992 1997

Percent of respondents visiting in last 12 months 27.1 21.9 26.7 34.9

Average number of visits in last 12 months NA NA 3.3 3.3

What is not clear from the survey responses is the nature of attendance. Some
patrons attend lectures and demonstrations; some stroll the galleries; some vis-
its may be exclusively to museum shops.5 Yet the “experience” is treated here
as a homogenous product across all respondents. This will require some careful
interpretation of the results.

2.2. DEMAND FOR THE ARTS

In this section I develop some hypotheses regarding variables which may be linked
to demand for the arts, thereby resulting in differences in reported participation
rates. The specific control variables are price, age, gender, geographic location,
race, household income, and education.

Price. The economic theory of demand focuses explicitly on the role of price in
determining sales volume or, in this case, frequency of attendance. Price estimates
are available only for a small subset of attenders, so we are unable to explore the
role of price vis-a-vis non attenders or for most of those who attend. Price is thus
excluded from this analysis, but it will be the subject of subsequent study by the
author.6

Age. Culture, it is said, is an acquired taste, and acquisition of taste takes time.7 It
would follow that participation increases with age. The adult population has been
classified into four groupings for the purposes of analyses in this paper. These are
young adults (18 through 29), “thirtysomethings” (30 through 44), middle age (45
through 64), and “retired” (65 and above). These groupings are perhaps not entirely
arbitrary. The youngest range from traditional college age to those who, although
in their late twenties, are still in the early stages of their adult lives. The thirtysome-
things, which actually extends into the mid-40s, have had opportunities to become
established in their chosen lifestyles, to incur the obligations of adulthood, and to
have made a career move or two. The twenty-year middle age range encompasses
a variety of life experiences. The retired group, many of whom may not be retired
at all, are experiencing the culmination of life’s experiences. 8

Education. One means by which we acquire a taste for culture and the arts is
exposure through education. It has been argued that appreciation of the more com-
plex arts requires investment in “consumption skills”, i.e. learning to understand,
90 CHARLES M. GRAY

say, opera.9 Elementary and secondary school curricula typically offer art and
music classes, and most colleges offer – and many require – art or music appre-
ciation courses. Accordingly, we would reasonably expect participation to rise as
education level rises.
For purposes of subsequent analyses, reported years of education have been
aggregated into four groups: elementary at most (education did not proceed beyond
the elementary levels, years one through eight); high school (years nine through
12); post secondary (at least some college or the equivalent, years 13 and beyond);
and post-graduate work, some study beyond college graduation.
Several measures of more specific arts exposure are employed here. These in-
clude whether or not the respondent had art lessons or art history lessons; whether
those lessons were associated with school or elsewhere; and the respondent age(s)
at the time of the lessons.

Income. The most obvious means by which income would impact arts partic-
ipation would be ability to pay. Clearly, persons with higher incomes are more
likely to be able to afford to attend a performing arts activity. For analytical pur-
poses, the several reported income bands were aggregated into four groups. These
have been characterized as “poverty” ($0–20,000 per year, which does not cor-
respond to census definitions of poverty level); low ($20,001–50,000); moderate
($50,001–100,000); and high (more than $100,000).10

Gender. There is no obvious or intrinsic reason to expect differential participation

rates between men and women. Yet the differences are well known: women partici-
pate in the arts at higher rates than men. Perhaps this is rooted in early acculturation
processes, when boys were often channeled into sports to the exclusion of arts.

Race. As in gender, there is no obvious source of race-based differentials in art

participation. Accounting for other factors that are correlated with race, such as
income and education, may not eliminate racial differences. Racial or ethnic groups
which are not European in origin may not be strongly attracted to such art forms as
symphonic music and traditional opera, which are firmly rooted in Western artistic
traditions. Minority groups may feel, or even be, excluded from “mainstream”
arts. The racial groupings of the survey are collapsed into white, black (African
American), Asian, and Indian (including all Native Americans). Respondents of
Hispanic origin are identified separately.

3. Multivariate Statistical Analysis

Multivariate statistical techniques are most appropriate to address questions of
this nature. Such techniques generate estimates of the parameters, or relationships
among a number of variables simultaneously.11 The specific technique used here is
logistic regression, which deals with categorical response variables. 12 An example
HOPE FOR THE FUTURE? 91

of a categorical response variable is gender, where a respondent can be either male

or female, i.e., fall into one category or the other. This contrasts with more nearly
continuous variables, such as household income, which can take values from zero
to the millions of dollars or higher. But even these latter can be grouped into cat-
egories for statistical purposes, as has been done in this paper. Statistical results,
literal interpretations, and inferences are indicated in the sections which follow.
The estimating equation for multiple regression takes the general form

P = f (D, C) (1)

where P is the participation measure for either a live or media activity; D is a

vector of demographic variables; and C is an indicator of earlier (e.g., childhood)
exposure to the arts.

3.1. LOGISTIC MODELS

Logistic regression estimates the probability of an event occurring, e.g. of an in-

dividual attending a live performance or participating via some media form. The
logistic model can be written in terms of the “log of the odds”, which is called a
logit:
 
Prob(event)
log = B0 + B1 X1 + . . . + Bn Xn (2)
Prob(no event)
An equivalent expression is
1
Prob(event) = (3)
1+ e−(B0 +B1 X1 ...)
which we can use to construct an illustrative example. Borrowing some values from
the first column of Table III, we seek to determine the probability that a thirty-
something white male with moderate income and a high school education would
visit a museum in the survey period. The calculation is
Prob(museum visit) =
1
= 0.3790
1 + e−(−3.0265−0.1567(1)+0.3699(1)+2.1031(1)+0.2171(1))
which means that there is more than a one-third chance that the person described
above would have visited a museum during the survey period. The corresponding
probability for an otherwise similar respondent who took art lessons previously in
both school and other settings increases to more than two-thirds.
A positive value of Bi increases the log of the odds, while a negative value
decreases the log of the odds. Put less precisely but more simply, a positive co-
efficient indicates that the variable increases the likelihood of the event, while a
negative coefficient decreases the likelihood. The greater is the absolute value of a
92 CHARLES M. GRAY

Table II. List of variable definitions

Variable Brief description Reference

Male Self explanatory Female

Low income Household income range just above “poverty” Poverty income
Mod. income Household income range below the highest Poverty income
High Income Highest household income Poverty income
High School From 9 through 12 years of education Elementary or less
College From 12 through 16 years of education Elementary or less
Graduate School Post baccalaureate study Elementary or less
Thirty some Age between 30 and 44 Young adult (18–29)
Middle Age Age between 45 and 64 Young adult
Retired Age 65 or greater Young adult
Black African American not Hispanic White, not Hispanic
Asian All Asian White, not Hispanic
Indian American Indian, Eskimo, or Aleut White, not Hispanic
Hispanic Of Hispanic origin White
Elsewhere Lessons elsewhere besides school Lessons in School
Both Lessons both in schools and elsewhere Lessons in School
Less than 12 Lessons before age 12 Lessons after age 24
12 to 17 Lessons during the teen years Lessons after age 24
18 to 24 Lessons during college-age years Lessons after age 24

coefficient, the greater is the impact of the variable. For example, a positive value
of the coefficient of an age group indicator indicates that someone in that age group
is more likely to participate.

3.2. LOGISTIC REGRESSION RESULTS

Table II lists and briefly defines the variables included in the logistic regressions.
The approach taken here is simply to identify those variables which may influence
consumer tastes or consumer willingness to pay with respect to each of the core
arts. Such variables include demographic descriptors of respondents as well as
characteristics of their locations. Hence, gender, race, and education levels are
among the variables which may be taken to indicate tastes, while income reflects
both tastes and the ability to pay for arts participation.
In accordance with the hypotheses set out earlier, one might imagine on an
a priori basis the following to obtain: those with higher education levels may
have developed tastes more consistent with complex preferences; older respondents
would have more time to develop complex tastes. The expected impact of race is
for the most part less clear. Ordinarily, individuals with higher income levels would
HOPE FOR THE FUTURE? 93

participate more because of ability to pay. And finally (as the sneak preview above
seems to confirm), art lessons should be associated with greater participation. With
those not too unreasonable expectations, we move to the statistical results.
Significance of individual coefficients is based on the Wald statistic, and sig-
nificant coefficients are indicated by one or more asterisks in the tables. Overall
model reliability is indicated by the log likelihood and goodness of fit, which in
each instance are consistent with generally reliable models. Also reported is the
percentage of cases which are correctly classified by the model.

3.3. ART LESSONS

Table III presents results that are for the most part in keeping with expectations,
but one anomaly also appears. We note at the outset that missing or unusable
data reduce the number of observations from the more than 12,000 respondents
to between about 900 and 1500 cases. The demographic variables have the ex-
pected impact: those with higher incomes report greater likelihood of attendance,
reflecting greater ability to pay as well as whatever taste influences may reasonably
be associated with income level. Attendance also rises with education and age, in
keeping with the expectation that tastes develop over time and, at least in part,
by virtue of education. The race variables are a mixed bag and, in any event, not
significant.13
Interestingly, art lessons taken at an early age, less than 12, are positively and
significantly associated with adult visits to museums, and young adult lessons indi-
cate an even more powerful association. Lessons from middle through high school
have neither a strong nor significant association, perhaps revealing something about
respondent openness to such exposure during the tumultuous teen years.
Also of interest is the venue of lessons. Column 3 results reveal that, where
school-based lessons are the reference group, lessons taken elsewhere have a sig-
nificantly greater association with adult visits. Lessons taken in both places have a
more powerful association still.

3.4. ART APPRECIATION CLASSES

Table IV presents results of the analysis of art appreciation or art history classes.
Again, the estimated coefficients in the second column, which focuses on the age
of classes, have the correct sign insofar as we are able to predict, the race variables
being the unknowns. The likelihood of a museum visit rises with income, educa-
tion, and age, although the education variables are not significant. The association
with classes is strongest and most significant at the elementary and college age
levels.
Class venue is explored in the third column. The one notable anomaly is the pos-
itive and significant coefficient for male as opposed to female, which is inconsistent
with most other findings. But compared to classes taken in the schools, classes
94 CHARLES M. GRAY

Table III. Logistic regression, art museum visits

and art lessons, 1997

Ind. var. Coefficients

Male –0.1576 –0.1991

Low income 0.2542 0.0520
Mod. income 0.3699b 0.0527
High income 0.7746b 0.5543a
High school 2.1031b 1.6572
College 2.7591b 2.1966a
Post graduate 3.3522b 3.2063b
Thirty some 0.2171 0.3305a
Middle age 0.3570b 0.1999
Retired 0.4820b 0.2421
Black 0.2446 0.1519
Asian –0.1855 –0.2923
Indian –0.3305 –0.2361
Hispanic 0.2579 0.2299
Art lessons, elsewhere 0.6467b
Art lessons, both 1.2826b
Less than 12 0.2771a
12 to 17 0.0690
18 to 24 0.4056b
Constant –3.0265 –0.9940

N 1469 882
–2 Log like 1817.263 1073.307
Goodness of fit 1470.650 881.513
Class. pct. 66.71 66.44
a Significance greater than 0.10.
b Significance greater than 0.05.

taken elsewhere and in both venues have a greater and statistically significant
association.

4. Summary and Conclusions

This paper has sought to determine whether and to what extent exposure to the arts
as a youngster generates greater likelihood of participation as an adult. The explicit
focus has been upon art lessons, school-based or elsewhere, at various ages, and the
subsequent impact on visits to art museums. The results unambiguously support the
hypothesis that lessons enhance participation, controlling for other influences. It is
not so clear that school is the optimal venue for these lessons, perhaps because
HOPE FOR THE FUTURE? 95
Table IV. Logistic regression, art museum visits and
art appreciation classes 1997

Ind. var. Coefficients

Male 0.0393 0.3903a

Low income 0.2300 –0.0107
Mod. income 0.3468a 0.0789
High income 0.4533a 0.0383
High school 4.3624 6.2637
College 4.8758 6.9470
Post graduate 5.5274 7.8305
Thirty some 0.0944 –0.0023
Middle age 0.3537b 0.1377
Retired 0.5891b 0.3690
Black –0.1873 –0.6644a
Asian –0.1002 –1.0046
Indian –0.0156 0.3537
Hispanic 0.2594 –0.0071
Appreciation, elsewhere 0.7792a
Appreciation, both 1.3045b
Less than 12 0.6072b
12 to 17 0.1881
18 to 24 0.4373b
Constant –5.2227 –6.6316

N 1340 473
–2 Log like. 1634.884 566.703
Goodness of fit 1340.701 472.759
Class. pct. 67.69 68.50
a Significance greater than 0.10.
b Significance greater than 0.05.

schools may be ill-equipped to offer the breadth and depth necessary for desired
effectiveness. It does seem that a “cultural vaccination” may take well at younger
ages, fall off in the teen years, then rise again later.
A few opportunities for further research were noted in the text and footnotes.
Among the additional questions begging further inquiry are these:
• Will theater and music lessons and appreciation classes have corresponding
impacts on participation in these art forms?
• Why in some instances are the results not sufficiently robust to hold up when
missing data reduces the number of observations so dramatically?
• Would a cohort study, tracking a panel of respondents for an extended period,
yield similar results?
96 CHARLES M. GRAY

Some of these questions will be the subjects of ongoing analysis of the SPPAs; at
least the last one must await a future data-collection effort.

Appendix A: Selected SPPA Questions

[During the last 12 months,] Did you visit an art museum or gallery?
 No  Yes
Have you ever taken lessons or classes in visual arts such as sculpture, painting,
print making, photography, or film making?
 No  Yes
Did you take these lessons when you were
 Less than 12 years old
 12–17 years old
 18–24 years old
 25 or older
Were the lessons or classes you took at age 17 or younger offered by the elementary,
middle, junior high, or high school you were attending or did you take these lessons
elsewhere?
 School
 Elsewhere
 Both
Have you ever taken a class in art appreciation or art history?
 No  Yes
Did you take this class when you were
 Less than 12 years old
 12–17 years old
 18–24 years old
 25 or older
Was this class you took at age 17 or younger offered by the elementary, middle,
junior high, or high school you were attending or did you take this class elsewhere?
 School
 Elsewhere
 Both
HOPE FOR THE FUTURE? 97

Notes
∗ Prior versions of portions of this paper appeared as Gray (1995) and were presented to the
biannual meeting of the Association for Cultural Economics, International, Boston, 1996, and
the annual meeting of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary
Associations, New York, November 1996. This research derives from work performed for the
National Endowment for the Arts under contracts/orders Y94-0579, C97-61, and C97-63. Ideas
and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not reflect an official position of the
National Endowment for the Arts or any other public or private agency. Thanks to Virginia Lee
Owen and Donald Coffin, who provided helpful comments on earlier versions.
1. For an overview of the first three surveys, see Robinson (1993). The benchmark arts are jazz,
classical music, opera, musical plays and operettas, dramas, ballet and other dance forms, and
museums and the visual arts.
2. Alternatively, these variables could be taken to measure relative costs of consuming the arts,
including search and information costs. See Stigler and Becker (1977). McCain (1979, 1986)
also addresses the question of taste.
3. Space constraints prohibit an extensive discussion of these issues here. For an overview of types
of market failure and rationales for public intervention in arts markets, see Heilbrun and Gray
(1993), especially chapter 11.
4. It is well known, of course, that attendance at some “blockbusters” is so great as to diminish the
overall experience.
5. The various functions of art museums are discussed in DiMaggio (1991) and d’Harmoncourt
(1991).
6. It is well known that omission of a relevant variable, i.e. an incorrect model specification, can
result in biased parameter estimates. This is especially true if the omitted variable is correlated
with included variables. There is no reason to believe, especially in a cross-section analysis of the
type presented here, that any strong correlation exists between price and the other explanatory
variables. Nonetheless, caution is urged in interpreting results.
7. More in keeping with the Stigler-Becker approach, it also takes time to acquire knowledge of
relevant costs.
8. This older group may fruitfully be further divided so as to separate out the “old old”, those in
their 80s and 90s who may not be so active as the “young old”. This is on the author’s future
research agenda.
9. This is due largely to Scitovsky (1976)
10. These categories are arbitrary, and future research may address the sensitivity of results to these
choices.
11. A technical discussion of econometric techniques, including regression, is far beyond the scope
of this monograph. The interested reader can pursue any of a number of elementary treatments,
including Kennedy (1993).
12. Perhaps the classic reference is Maddala (1983). See also Norusis (1990, pp. 45–69). For a
similar but more limited application, see Morrison and West (1986).
13. This is in marked contrast with prior work by the author, which found race a significant deter-
minant of attendance for at least several arts activities (Gray, 1995).

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