A Social Science of the Arts Is Needed

To the Editor:

An informed debate over a national cultural policy is long overdue (“Pew to Emphasize Cultural Policy,” August 12). The Pew Charitable Trusts is to be applauded for recognizing that the debate over whether or not to have a national cultural policy and what that policy might look like will depend crucially on the quality of data on the nature of the impact the arts have on individuals and communities. The foundation is well aware that reliable data will only be available once social scientists have solved the problem of how to measure that impact by identifying the right research questions and developing an appropriate research agenda around this issue.

Pew is correct in assuming that it is inappropriate to reduce the value of the arts to economic returns. Such logic would force the conclusion that where the arts do not demonstrate a favorable economic rate of return they should be closed down. Similarly, to argue only on the basis of the number of people who purchase opera tickets or who paint murals on walls of abandoned inner-city buildings invites the arts to become easy entertainment so that they might draw large crowds.

The relevant question is, “What role does opera or the community-based art project play in defining the quality of people’s lives?” The value of the arts will be revealed through an analysis of what people take away from their encounters with art and the multi-layered context of psychological, social, historical, cultural, and political factors that define the nature of that experience and the impact it will have in their lives.

The Social Science Research Council recently undertook the challenge of addressing these issues. With funding provided by the Rockefeller Foundation, the council recently established the Program on the Arts and appointed a committee of distinguished social scientists to spend the next few years developing a strategy for creating a coherent field of scholarly inquiry around this issue — a social science of art — as well as a research agenda that can inform policy debates and funding decisions by foundations interested in supporting the kinds of arts programs that will improve the quality of life of their constituencies.

Ellen Perecman
Director, Program on the Arts
Social Science Research Council
New York