Stern, Mark
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Arts and Humanities
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Faculty Member
Introduction
The Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP)is a research project of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Social Policy & Practice. SIAP's mission is to develop methods to study how the arts and culture influence urban neighborhoods. Over the past 15 years, SIAP has conducted a variety of research projects, focused on metropolitan Philadelphia.
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Now showing 1 - 10 of 67
Publication Culture and Community Revitalization: A Framework for the Emerging Field of Culture-Based Neighborhood Revitalization(2011-08-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan CThis summary flyer provides an overview of the publications produced as part of the Culture and Community Revitalization project. The SIAP - Reinvestment Fund collaboration was undertaken from 2006 to 2008 with support by the Rockefeller Foundation. http://repository.upenn.edu/siap_revitalization/Publication “Natural” Cultural Districts and Neighborhood Revitalization(2009-06-01) Stern, Mark JIn this presentation, Stern argues for a policy approach that recognizes creativity as deeply embedded in urban social structure and the importance of diversity (economic, ethnic, and household) to the social production of the arts and culture. Only then can we come up with strategies that stimulate a creative society, not just a creative economy.Publication What do the Arts & Culture Contribute to Urban Life?(2013-10-25) Stern, Mark JFor a panel discussion on "Arts, Culture, and Vibrant Cities: Innovative Roles for Arts and Culture in Growing Inner Cities,” Stern’s talk uses Philadelphia research to highlight the sector’s drive to demonstrate economic vs. social benefits of “creative placemaking” and the consequences for disadvantaged urban neighborhoods. The event was part of “Reimagining Cities: Building Resiliency"—A Full-Day Symposium on Challenges Facing American Cities—held at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and Center for Politics and Governance, University of Texas at Austin, on Friday, October 25, 2013.Publication Individual Participation and Community Arts Groups: A Quantitative Analysis of Philadelphia(1994-10-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan CThis paper presents SIAP's first attempt to develop methods to measure the non-economic impact of the arts. The best data available on individual participation--periodic surveys of public participation in the arts by the National Endowment for the Arts--provided a wealth of data on individual behavior and attitude, but the few attempts to link these data to larger social contexts focused on the economics of arts consumption. This paper uses the public participation data for one city--Philadelphia. Information on the arts and cultural behavior of a sample of 600 adults in 1992 was linked with databases on cultural groups in the city to examine the role of community context on arts behavior. The findings were startling. Simple information on the cultural environment in which individuals live was more powerful than traditional socio-economic variables like income and education in predicting participation in the arts. These findings, by challenging the narrow economistic perspectives that have dominated the debate on arts and culture in the city, suggest that we need a broader and more fine-grained appreciation of the role of urban arts and their social impact.Publication Arts Resources for Children and Youth in Philadelphia(1997-04-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan CThis report, commissioned in 1995 by The Pew Charitable Trusts, presents findings of a study of arts and cultural resources for children and youth in Philadelphia. The purpose of the project was to examine access to and opportunities in the arts for young people and assess the strengths and weaknesses of the citywide system. The project used two perspectives to assess resources. First, the research team developed a geographic data base of existing nonprofit youth arts providers and arts in the public schools. This was combined with US census data to examine the geography and socio-economic context of existing services. Second, the team conducted over 40 interviews with cultural organizations and city agencies to understand relationships among different providers as a network of children’s arts resources. Appendix A lists the 229 nonprofit youth-serving cultural organizations in Philadelphia and identifies the 47 providers that participated in the qualitative phase of the study.Publication “Natural” Cultural Districts: A Three-City Study(2013-02-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan CFrom 2010 to 2012, SIAP undertook a study of “natural” cultural districts in three cities—Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Seattle. This report presents findings of two sets of analyses: a citywide analysis of the social geography and cultural ecology of each city and a set of case studies of cultural clusters within the three cities. For each case study, in the following seven neighborhoods, a statistical overview was fleshed out by qualitative study: Baltimore—Highlandtown-Patterson Park and Station North; Philadelphia—Callowhill/Chinatown North and South Philadelphia; and Seattle—Capitol Hill, the Central District, and Chinatown-International District. The citywide analyses examined the relationship of cultural engagement to social and economic change in the three cities. The case studies focused on the character and evolution of “natural” cultural districts and the challenges posed to their sustainability, including the role of cultural space. The broader goal of the project was to understand the dynamics of the community cultural ecosystem, connections between cultural ecology and community wellbeing, and implications for policy and planning.Publication The Geography of Cultural Production in Metropolitan Philadelphia(2000-02-01) Stern, Mark JIn previous work on Philadelphia, SIAP found that nonprofit arts and cultural organizations tended to concentrate in economically and ethnically diverse neighborhoods. This paper uses data on for-profit cultural firms to document whether they too cluster in diverse neighborhoods or if they have a different logic of agglomeration. The paper uses two data sets for the five-county Philadelphia region: the nonprofit inventory of over 1,200 cultural providers—including incorporated and “informal” programs—compiled by SIAP in 1997; and a for-profit database of approximately 1,300 cultural firms derived in 1999 from a yellow-pages compilation of selected industries. The paper concludes with a description of five “natural” cultural districts in metropolitan Philadelphia with a focus on the mix of firms in each. It calls for further analysis of the synergies between the for-profit and nonprofit cultural sectors to understand how they share resources—especially audiences and artists—and what sustains these “natural” cultural districts. The implication is that cultural district planning could expand from tourist destinations to arts and cultural production districts.Publication From Creative Economy to Creative Society(2008-01-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan CPublic policy promoting the creative economy has two serious flaws: one, a misperception of culture and creativity as a product of individual genius rather than collective activity; and, two, a willingness to tolerate social dislocation in exchange for urban vitality or competitive advantage. This brief recaps current culture and revitalization research and policy and proposes a new model—a neighborhood based creative economy—that has the potential to move the 21st century city toward shared prosperity and social integration.Publication Documenting Civic Engagement: A Plan for the Tucson Pima Arts Council(2009-06-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan CThis 2009 report is the product of SIAP’s collaboration with the Tucson Pima Arts Council (TPAC) on a plan to document TPAC’s impact on civic engagement in Tucson and Pima County, Arizona. The goal of the project was to develop a plan to enable TPAC to phase in systematic collection and analysis of data on various forms of engagement. The report begins with a review of the policy context in which the project was undertaken, including the findings of the Pima Cultural Plan. The report then discusses a strategy and recommendations for documenting civic engagement and outlines a staged implementation plan. Specifically, Stern and Seifert propose five strategies: improving organizational data gathering, telling stories, documenting artists and the informal cultural sector, identifying institutional networks, and using geographic information systems to integrate data for analysis.Publication Civic Engagement and the Arts: Issues of Conceptualization and Measurement(2009-01-01) Stern, Mark J; Seifert, Susan CThis report focuses on one aspect of the social impact of the arts--their influence on civic engagement. The inquiry was undertaken during 2008 in collaboration with Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts. The purpose was to assess the state of knowledge about the relationship of the arts to civic engagement and to suggest ways that artists, cultural and community organizations, philanthropists, and public agencies could improve the quality of that knowledge. The approach was a review of literature drawn from the social sciences, the humanities, and public policy in an attempt to bridge theory with practice and research with evaluation. The authors structure the report as a conventional research design--that is, they define terms, conceptualize relationships among variables, identify methodological challenges, and assess data gathering strategies. Lastly, they propose a three-tier approach--with organizational or program-scale strategies, regional-scale strategies, and initiative-scale strategies--to improve the field's ability to document and understand the impact of the arts and culture on civil society.