The Arts

RAND is building a research capability in the arts to provide useful data and analysis to policymakers, arts practitioners, and the academic community. View all Arts Documents Available Online or find general information at Reports and Bookstore.

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Trends and Future Prospects for the Arts Predict Changing Role for State Agencies — Nov. 18, 2008

State arts agencies — key players within the U.S. system of public support for the arts — face a wide varitey of challenges to their typical roles as grantmakers. The author concludes that future state arts policy is likely to focus more on efforts to develop the creative economy and to grow the audience for the arts.

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Improving Arts Education Is Key To Stemming Audience Decline — Sep. 8, 2008

Policymakers have underestimated the critical role of arts learning in supporting a vibrant nonprofit cultural sector. Despite decades of effort to make high-quality works of art available to Americans, demand for the arts has failed to keep pace with supply.

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Improving Arts Learning Opportunities for Pittsburgh Public Schools Students — Dec. 1, 2008

This evaluation of arts education in grades K-12 in Pittsburgh public schools finds strengths in the school district's program hampered by uneven access and weak partnerships with community arts organizations, both perhaps due to the lack of a comprehensive district-wide arts education policy.

June 1, 2009: RAND Announces New Pricing Strategy and Partnerships for E-Books

February 27, 2009: Power to the People: Rebooting Conventional Diplomacy, By Cheryl Benard, Edward O'Connell (The Huffington Post)

September 8, 2008: Improving Arts Education Is Key to Stemming Audience Decline

June 18, 2008: Creative Collaborative Approaches Work to Maintain, Extend Arts Education in Six U.S. Urban Areas

March 9, 2007: RAND Study Says Greater Collaboration and Centralization of Functions Needed to Support Arts

View All »Featured Reports

Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate About the Benefits of the Arts

During the past decade, arts advocates have relied on an instrumental approach to the benefits of the arts in arguing for support of the arts. This report evaluates these arguments and asserts that a new approach is needed. This new approach offers a more comprehensive view of how the arts create private and public value, underscores the importance of the arts’ intrinsic benefits, and links the creation of benefits to arts involvement.

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The Performing Arts in a New Era

The Performing Arts in a New Era is the first book to provide a comprehensive overview of the performing arts, including analysis of opera, theater, dance, and music, in both their live and recorded forms. The authors focus on trends affecting four aspects of the performing arts — audiences, performers, arts organizations, and financing — and offer a vision for the future.

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