Communities, Culture, and Capabilities
During the 2010s, SIAP began to integrate international scholarship on the capabilities approach into its conceptualization about the social value of the arts and culture. In June 2011, at a symposium on the “Future of the City” at the University of Chicago, Mark Stern proposed social inclusion as a framework for understanding the benefits of the arts and cultural engagement. This perspective, in fact, shaped the Philadelphia culture and social wellbeing project undertaken as part of CultureBlocks Philadelphia.
In 2014, with support by the Surdna Foundation, SIAP refined the Philadelphia culture and social wellbeing indexes; prepared a preliminary comparative study of four U.S. cities (for the "Human Development in Times of Crisis" conference in Athens); and laid the groundwork for the culture and social wellbeing in New York City project.
Submissions from 2014
Communities, Culture, and Capabilities: Preliminary Results of a Four-City Study, Mark J. Stern and Susan C. Seifert
Culture's Contribution to Social Wellbeing, University of Pennsylvania Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) and Reinvestment Fund
Submissions from 2011
The Arts and Social Inclusion, Mark J. Stern