Did Cultural and Artistic Education in the Netherlands increase Student Participation in High Cultural Events?

This study examines whether Cultural and Artistic Education in the Netherlands caused students to participate more in high cultural events. A unique feature of the intervention was that students were free to choose the type of cultural event they participated in. So the intervention relied on the intrinsic motivation of students to participate in high cultural events, while there was no reason to assume that this motivation was present given the existing literature. We find that Cultural and Artistic Education increased the participation in high culture, but not the participation in popular culture. The effect of the intervention is, however, small. Student characteristics do not influence high cultural participation, but the fraction of immigrant students in the class does: the lower this fraction, the more students participate in high cultural events. Finally, the effect seems to represent (at least partly) the intrinsic motivation of students for high culture. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013