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PROCEEDING OF THE
INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS 8th-10th June 2011:
ACTIVE CULTURAL PARTICIPATION IN EUROPE
ARTS CENTRE VOORUIT GHENT, BELGIUM
Friday 10 June, Lecture Two:
The effect of generations.
Speakers: Andreas Wiesand and Ritva Mitchell
Discussants: John Lievens and Andries van den Broek
The discussion on cultural participation and 50+ generations becomes a topic in the field, that is
becoming high on the European agenda. There are growing fears about what will happen when the
generation of babyboomers will all be retired. What will the governments do? This is the background for
the study by Mitchell (Finland) and Wiesand (Germany), who carried out a comparative research. (see
slides).
Starting point is that there will be a shift in population, as more people get older. In the USA, Europe and
Japan, studies have been effectuated in which the value of active cultural participation was proved,
even in difficult situations (e.g. where the elder had illnesses such as dementia, Alzheimer,…). These
elder people were engaged in therapeutic drama activity; with success. The main question that remains
is how to really prepare our societies for these new situations, seeing there are a lot of elders. Society
doesn’t always know what their potential is, because there are not enough new initiatives yet. The main
issues are the chances that have to be created in order to make people stay young in their minds. That’s
why a German survey was started. Ritva Mitchell informs the audience that there is a high percentage of
babyboomers that made a cultural revolution in the 60ties possible, which renewed the whole cultural
scene as well. This generation (born in 40-50ties), is getting to pension. We need to know what their
cultural habits are, and in what way these habits differ from the pensioners now.
Fieldwork has already been done by professors, oral interviewers, and publications have been prepared.
There will also be joint publications on the internet. (see slides). The surveys conducted by Mitchell &
Wiesand included demographic indicators, cultural interest, cultural biographies, the reasons to engage
in cultural activities, lifelong learning, new media and the transfer of knowledge.
Some results were presented (see slides).
1. Age specific patterns gradually dissolve (these have changed dramatically: are concerts viewed
solely by youngster?).
2. Active culture participation can potentially be a rejuvenating cure. The integration of the 50 +
generation into society is important. There is a strong interest to participate in the cultural life
of one’s own region (Germany) or in that of others (Finland). Both countries do have a high
amount of participation. 30 % of the elder are hardcore cultural consumers.
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3. Beware of ‘Happy Agers’ stereotypes: less than 1/3 of the 50+ group is consistent with this ideal
view. For the others there’s a middle part. These are not good results: there is the reality of age
poverty, which should be included in the interpretation and in the research. (see slides)
4. Where do elders actively participate? (see slides): they engage in singing, photography, painting,
dancing, acting, etc. There is a substantial difference between Finland and Germany: is this due
to infrastructure, money, the type of traditions in cultural participation? In Finland for instance,
women are more active in amateur arts than men. The belonging to an association is much
bigger in Finland than it is in Germany. The associations make it easier to enter and participate
in Finland, they offer a lot of possibilities, they are being mobile, organize a lot of activities
themselves. Most people in Finland participate in culture via associations. However, in the field
of voluntary work, the Germans are more active than the Fins. But in Finland ‘voluntary’ work is
seen just as an activity in civil society, whereas in Germany it is more structured.
5. ‘From the work place to voluntary work’ is really popular in Germany.
6. Cross-cultural communication is needed. The older cohorts of the 50+ group (older than 70 and
80) do not just adapt to this changing society, with its higher stream of immigrants. In Finland
the structures for immigration are very different from many other European countries: there is a
far more smaller visible minority in Finland than in other communities, the greatest immigrant
communities come from Russia, they look alike, and talk alike. So the elder Finnish and Russian
associate more than is the case in some countries with higher (visible) migrant communities.
7. Improving conditions for cultural participation at all ages remains necessary. Some people in
Germany complain that certain activities are not accessible for them (e.g. the event is too far
away, not easily accessible for less mobile persons, …). There is a need for more specific aids to
be provided by institution or by cultural policy makers: e.g. in homes for the elderly, etc.
8. There is a high motivation to learn artistic skills among the old (‘life long learning’). Finnish
figures are very high. Answering the question of the survey ‘Do you believe that you can do this’,
most respondents believe they can, but they want the provisions to be there. Most music
schools in Europe for instance still concentrate on the youth.
9. Cultural education must start earlier. One has to start earlier, so that they have bigger chance
when they are older to resume any cultural activity they once started.
10. A choice should be made: either senior members of societies are put into ‘senior ghettos’, or
they remain active within society in whatever form; they will not stay young forever, but time is
on their side.
Speaker Andries van den Broek: Generations in amateur arts
To illustrate his lecture, van den Broek showed the audience a video of the song ‘My Generation’ by The
Who.
Picking up on the former lecture by Mitchell and Wiesand, van den Broek stressed that the concept of
generation is a difficult topic but a very interesting one. There are generations in families as well as in
society (see slides). In the family, there is a transfer of capital (economic, social, …). This means that in a
cultural active family, kids have twice more chance to engage in cultural participation if their parents
already are (this is based on a Dutch population survey).
Throughout the generations, there are processes of ongoing innovation: successful new techniques
destroy or replace older ones. According to Mannheim, the formative period is in your youth, the
worldview you have or adopt then, will always be your frame of reference from which you will see the
world. If there are enough differences between the formative experiences gathered, then there may be
differences between generations in societies. People recognize themselves in one generation or the
other. A generation moves through the life course and through historical time.
Andreas Wiesand comments: There are groups that learned something totally different than others.
There are at least two to three different groups in these elder generations. It’s a generalization.
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Speaker John Lievens: The effect of generations. Inside Flemish Research
Generation and age is not always something to think about in groups or years, because you often grow
just one year older to jump into another generation.
What is important for amateur participation is what happens at different ages: when does participation
drop and rise. A number of slides with graphs illustrate what happens with participation in relation to
age. Some examples:
Attendance to theatre and dance is high at a young age, drops at 40, peaks again around 60 and then
drops again. The same holds true for musicals and shows. Cinema is often attended by the extreme
young (+/-70 %). There is a steep drop until the age of 40, a leveling around the age of 50, and then it
goes down again. Amateur art is very high at young age (+/- 70 %), the participation is around 30 % untill
35, and then rather constant up to 70 years of age, and than it gradually goes down. The generation
effect is not always clear for other forms of culture participation, such as classical music for instance: do
people like it because they get older, or because they heard it before, and start to appreciate it again
etc.
Conclusion: A lot of cultural activities are dropped around the age of 60-65. So it is important that
cultural participation is being past on and stimulated throughout the generation. Intergenerational
transmission of cultural participation is very important: if your parents went to museums, there is a
bigger chance you will go too than if this was not the case. A household survey furthermore showed that
in a selection of households where children lived in with their cultural active parents, there was a strong
positive effect. In Flanders, every year there are surveys done on different topics according to physical
age. Cinema is a set highest for younger people, jazz & blues concerts are mostly attended by people
between 20-50 years of age. But then mostly for every activity, the participation drops. The only
exception to this is opera, which is the most diverging according to birth cohorts: all ages participate,
safe for the youngest cohorts.
Intervention by Ritva Mitchell: You don’t only have to look at the ages; you also have to look for the
education background, the possible migrant background etc. You would probably have another form of
participation then, because (active) culture participation is always a mix of these factors.