Survey of Public Participation in the Arts 2002 [United States]

Produced By: National Endowment for the Arts, 2003, Washington, D.C.

Author: National Endowment for the Arts

Abstract (CPANDA): This data set offers information on Americans' participation in the arts, including ballet, opera, plays, museums, and concerts, during 2001-2002. The fifth in a series of national studies on arts participation sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts since 1982, the 2002 SPPA was conducted by the Bureau of the Census as a supplement to a larger national survey, the Current Population Survey (CPS). Respondents were asked a core set of questions about their participation in, and frequency of attending, art performances and events between August 1, 2001 and August 1, 2002 in the following categories: jazz music, classical music, opera, musicals, plays (nonmusical), ballet, other dance, art museums, arts-crafts fairs, and historical park/monument sites. The questionnaire also included questions about exposure to the arts via the media, both broadcast and recorded (respondents were asked about DVD viewing for the first time in the 2002 survey). Other questions measured the amount and type of leisure reading in which respondents engaged in the last year, measured separately for plays, poetry, novels and short stories. A series of questions measured art making and performance. Questions were also asked about training and exposure to the arts, musical and artistic preferences, length of travel to artistic events, school-age socialization in the arts, and (for the first time in the SPPA) computer usage related to artistic information.

Methodology (CPANDA) : A total of 17,135 completed surveys were collected from a sample of U.S. households. The sample was selected using a stratified, multi-stage, clustered design and drawn from Census Bureau population counts. All non-institutionalized adults living in the U.S. were eligible. All those above age 18 in selected households were asked to respond. The survey had an overall response rate of 70 percent. The 2002 SPPA consisted of more than 90 percent telephone and less than 10 percent face-to-face interviews conducted during the period of August 18-24, 2002. The survey was appended to the Current Population Survey (CPS), conducted by the Census Bureau. The Current Population Survey is an on-going national household sample survey of about 60,000 eligible households every month. One quarter of the CPS households in August 2002 were sampled for the SPPA supplement. The data include a weight variable to make the sample representative of the adult U.S. civilian non-institutional population by age, gender and ethnicity.