Sunil Iyengar

With the start of each new year, it’s salutary not only to make new plans but also to practice humility and take encouragement from what has gone before. Those of us who aggregate and analyze quantitative data about the arts can embark on 2023 with the knowledge that, 90 years earlier, the first major statistical product of this thrillingly complex enterprise was delivered to … [Read more...] about Revisiting the First U.S. Statistical Report about the Arts

Next year, the National Endowment for the Arts will offer a comprehensive view of how Americans experienced art forms in the second year of the pandemic, and how those patterns have shifted since pre-COVID times. This reporting will draw from two datasets to be released in 2023: the 2022 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA) and the 2022 General Social Survey’s … [Read more...] about Feasting on Arts Participation Survey Data—But First, Some Appetizers

In this episode, we look at a recent report on job quality measurement and consider its implications for strengthening the arts workforce. A transcript is available here. … [Read more...] about Quick Study: Job Quality Measurement and the Arts

One of my former colleagues used to complain that arts funders and administrators are “data paupers.” This must have been more than a decade ago. Even at the time, I questioned the assertion, but nowadays it may provoke stares. I mean, far from experiencing an arts data shortage, it often feels as though we’re swimming in the stuff. Quite apart from the increasingly … [Read more...] about Making Space for Indigenous Practices in Government Data about the Arts

In this episode, we consider “different ways of knowing”: how arts-based research can inform our understanding about—well—the arts. A transcript is available here. . … [Read more...] about Quick Study: Arts-Based Research Methods