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CHAPTER 2.5. WHERE DOES THIS TAKE US?
5.1 The Scottish Executive, specifically the Tourism Culture and Sport Group, is striving to achieve a set of indicators which will demonstrate the impact of culture and sport on quality of life and well-being.
5.2 We might start with the question: is this a realistic policy goal? Should government be involved in making us happy and enhancing our quality of life? One could argue that it is merely the responsibility of government to ensure a safe, just and fair society, allowing its citizens equal access to adequate services and opportunities, and making difficult decisions about competing priorities. We are not deliberately being mischievous in raising this issue: if, as the academic literature has shown, personality is a key determinant in quality of life, there is a serious question about the proper role of government in this policy area.
5.3 However, having posed that fundamental question, we will move on to address more directly the question asked of us.
5.4 A key impetus for this work is to address the need to demonstrate how far culture and sport address the economic, social (and environmental) priorities of the Executive - in other words, its place in the 'cross cutting agenda'. As we concluded from the literature review the development of cultural indicators of quality of life requires a theory grounded in empirical evidence. All attempts to do so have had to square up to the lack of such evidence, and they have done so in a variety of ways. One option is to try to develop, through intensive qualitative fieldwork over a period of years, the type of empirical evidence required to establish a theory of cultural impact. Another is to use cultural indicators as a research tool, putting forward a model of cultural impact and using a set of cultural indicators to test this out. Or, one can take as a given that culture plays a key role in quality of life, based either on beliefs, or on the body of existing research that suggests social impacts. For pragmatic reasons, and because the time-scales and budgets of most cultural research are limited, this is the approach adopted by most cultural indicators projects, including the Knight Foundation and Essex and Shropshire county councils. 452
5.5 The definitions of cultural participation adopted by these indicator studies are either 'top down' or 'bottom up'. Some studies stress the importance of taking a broad, inclusive definition of culture, using qualitative research to explore how specific communities understand and engage with culture and the significance they attach to it. The methodological problems for researching quality of life presented by broad definition are noted in the literature review. So, for pragmatic reasons, some indicator studies have defined culture in a narrower way, to correspond with local authority cultural provision, or attendance and participation at a selected range of arts events.
5.6 Cultural indicator studies also vary in how they define the concept of quality of life with several of the studies focusing on one dimension of quality of life - described variously as social capital/community building/community development. Notably, there is a wide variation in how these studies operationalise and measure this - there is, in short, no common method. In contrast, the work in Shropshire attempts to measure the influence of culture on each of 10 domains of quality of life at community level, creating very large and complex sets of data.
5.7 There are examples from the US of studies which start from the premise that culture is a vital part of quality of life and that high levels of cultural participation and activity are an indicator, in and of themselves, of quality of life.
5.8 From both the academic literature and the fledgling literature on cultural indicators, we think there are some pointers as to how the development of indicators has to be approached:
Examine the policy goal
This has to be the starting point. Given the complexity of the subject and, as we pointed out at the very start of this paper, the fact that quality of life is a dynamic and not a fixed concept, it is important to know the policy goal. However, since quality of life/well being is seen to change depending on age and stage of life, there is a real difficulty in applying lessons from one area to the next: this a nightmare scenario for policy making: is there a target group, geographically or by class or race, etc?; is it related to the idea of cultural entitlements perhaps?
Define the domains
We argue that 'quality of life' is a multi-dimensional concept which encompasses a range of domains - broadly in the areas of social economic and environmental - and that these domains are able to be assessed both objectively and subjectively. The cultural planning model, which demands a 'bottom up' approach to defining the culture of an area, is a useful starting point. It offers a concept which looks across the policy agenda - embracing the cross-cutting role of culture. However, building on the idea of cultural vitality it might also be useful - and more manageable-to look at the role of culture and sport in one domain and develop measures to assess the impact of culture and sport in this area, for example, in relation to 'social connectedness', where we have seen the role of culture and sport assumed. Alternatively, 'well-being', as a domain of quality of life, is measured in the psychology literature using satisfaction or happiness scales.
Qualitative and Quantitative indicators
Given the complexity of the concept - and even if the policy decision is to measure only one part of quality of life - then a range of indicators are required underpinned by data gathered by using both qualitative and quantitative research methods. It is also clear that no meaningful impacts will emerge from short term engagement in culture and sport and that there has to be a framework which looks at this issue over a sustained period of time. A key aspect of this work has to be about examining the quality of the input, how far does the quality of the work, activity or facility affect the quality of life?
Area based
As suggested in a. above, the focus has to be on specific areas of policy priority - but even then the development of indicators to measure impact on quality of life or well-being become either unmanageable or meaningless when attempting to apply on some kind of supra regional or national level.
Existing and new data sources
Following Schalock's suggestion, there is a need to look at what 'standard instruments' exist which are relevant to culture and sport. There is little in the statutory performance indicators for local government which is relevant. Drawing on consistently gathered data in other surveys (from business surveys to census data) can provide some background statistics but as we have explored both the advantages and disadvantages of large data sets has to be acknowledged. As many have argued, there is a lack of good quality consistently gathered data relating specifically to culture and sport.
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