Cultural Participation, Cohort effects, and Higher Education in the United States and France (1981-2012)

• In Event: 441 - Regular Session. Taste and Cultural Reception in Popular Culture

Abstract

The French and Americans are often presented as having radically different relations to highbrow and popular culture. Yet no analysis has systematically compared the evolutions of cultural participation in the two countries over time. In this paper, we propose a statistical exploration of two nationally representative cross-sectional data sets: the four waves of the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts in the United States (1982-2008) and the Enquête sur les Pratiques Culturelles des Français (1981-2008). We argue that in both countries the relationship between cultural practices and social stratification has changed over time and across generations. In the United States and in France, highbrow cultural activities and reading practices have declined over time, whereas television viewing has increased. We then focus on the impact of period change and cohort renewal on these evolutions. Using hierarchical age-period-cohort (HAPC) regression models, we show that cohort effects are more significant than period effects in both countries; we also document a decline in the positive impact of education on cultural participation among the latest cohorts in France but not in the U.S. We argue that these findings stem from two structural transformations: 1) the existence of a “baby boom” cohort with higher levels of education and cultural participation compared to other cohorts in both countries, and 2) the later massification of higher education in France compared to the United States. We conclude that the stratifying power of culture, highbrow and popular, varies across cohorts in different ways in the United States and France.

Authors

• Angele Christin, Data & Society Research Institute

• Philippe Coulangeon, CNRS/Sciences Po

• Olivier Donnat, Ministère de la culture