The central message of this report is that a new generation of veterans is returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan without sufficient connections to communities, is enthusiastic to serve again, and points the way forward for how our nation can better integrate them into civilian life. Although the 1.8 million veterans are from every corner of our nation, they are strongly united in their perspectives regarding civic responsibilities and opportunities as they return home. What’s more, the findings show that OIF/OEF veterans are underutilized assets in our communities, and their continued service is likely to improve their transition home. We believe there is significant potential to increase volunteering and civic engagement among this generation of veterans.
Civic Engagement/Community Development
CD-ROM: Arts and Civic Engagement Toolkit
This CD tool kit provides user-friendly worksheets and resources for planning, designing, and partnering on arts-based civic engagement projects and programs.
BOOK: Engaging Art, ed. Steven J. Tepper and Bill Ivey
Engaging Art explores the many ways that Americans participate in the arts today. The authors argue that a new commitment to arts participation in everyday art-making, creativity, and quality of life will not only restore the lifelong pleasure of homemade art, but will seed a new generation of arts enthusiasts.
Chorus Impact Study: How Children, Adults and Communities Benefit from Choruses
According to a new study by Chorus America, an estimated 32.5 million adults regularly sing in choruses today, up from 23.5 million estimated in 2003. And when children are included, there are 42.6 million Americans singing in choruses in 2009. More than 1 in 5 households have at least one singing family member, making choral singing the most popular form of participation in the performing arts for both adults and children. There are 270,000 choruses in the U.S., such as a community chorus or a school or church choir, and participation is strongly correlated with qualities that are associated with success throughout life, the study finds. Greater civic involvement, discipline, and teamwork are just a few of the attributes fostered by singing with a choral ensemble.
Arts Participation 2008: Highlights from a National Survey
American audiences for the arts are getting older, and their numbers are declining, according to new research released today by the National Endowment for the Arts. Arts Participation 2008: Highlights from a National Survey features top findings from the 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, the nation’s largest and most representative periodic study of adult participation in arts events and activities, conducted by the NEA in partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau. Five times since 1982, the survey has asked U.S. adults 18 and older about their patterns of arts participation over a 12-month period. The 2008 survey reveals dwindling audiences for many art forms, but it also captures new data on Internet use and other forms of arts participation.
BOOK: Cultural Democracy: The Arts, Community & the Public Purpose, by James Bau Graves
Cultural Democracy explores the crisis of our national cultural vitality, as access to the arts becomes increasingly mediated by a handful of corporations and the narrow tastes of wealthy elites. Graves offers the concept of cultural democracy as corrective–an idea with important historic and contemporary validation, and an alternative pathway toward ethical cultural development that is part of a global shift in values. Drawing upon a range of scholarship and illustrative anecdotes from his own experiences with cultural programs in ethnically diverse communities, Graves explains in convincing detail the dynamics of how traditional and grassroots cultures may survive and thrive–or not–and what we can do to provide them opportunities equal to those of mainstream, Eurocentric culture.
