The Social Value of the Arts

Our articles this week talk a good bit about measuring social value. As someone who's favorite hobbies involve theater and visual arts, this is a topic that I have been aware of since at least high school. I absolutely agree with Mr. Geoff Mulgan in "Measuring Social Value" that social value is better captured in metrics when it is viewed as "subjective, malleable, and variable."

I'll use a couple of examples from my own life to discuss Mr. Mulgan's points. When I was in high school, I started acting - participating in school plays and attending acting competitions usually two Saturdays per month around the state of Tennessee. These plays were funded, in part, by school taxes. In addition, I spent the summer attending the Tennessee Governor's School for Arts, a residential program completely funded by taxpayers. It's possible that I learned more important skills from these programs than from any formal education I have had before or since - including comfort with public speaking, the ability to think on my feet, empathy, teamwork, and perhaps most importantly, confidence. As a senior in college, I got a transformative job that required extensive public speaking which I am almost positive I would not have gotten without my theater background. In turn, that job from college has helped me get subsequent jobs. All because of government-funded programs I received outside of the normal public education curriculum. Sadly, every one of these programs has been cut in my hometown. Why? As Mr. Mulgan points out, probably because effective demand is lacking because it is not viewed as a need "pressing enough to warrant...resources." He stated one problem is "estimating how much good an action will bring about many years in the future, relative to how much it will cost to implement it now." Undoubtedly, it would have been difficult to predict ten years ago that these extracurricular programs would bring economic benefits years later as they have for me and no doubt hundreds or thousands of other students.

To add to the complexity, it's hard to come to a consensus about what's valuable. Most of us would agree that participation in sports often increases confidence, builds teamwork skills, sometimes critical-thinking/strategy ability, and can improve physical health. With the exception of the physical health component, I believe that the same benefits can be applied to the arts. Because athletics (though extremely expensive programs to run) may bring in more money through tickets and concession sales, they are often valued at a higher level and are among the last extracurriculars to be cut. Mr. Mulgan writes, "Social value can become clearer only through iterative processes that bring together supply and demand in deliberation and discussion. Even the most brilliant researcher cannot measure or even describe social value if she is not immersed in these discussions." How true this statement is when applied to the arts. On paper, looking at numbers, the arts may not seem valuable, but they take on an invaluable quality when talking with the participants or audience members.

As Mulgan states later in the article, supply and demand in this area is fuzzy. Perhaps what funders can do best is to encourage dialogue between program providers and program purchasers (the government). Foundations, like the Heinz Endowment, also have an important role to play and are often great supports of the arts. What other areas do you identify as being difficult to measure value?

-Whitney Coble