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

This study examines whether Cultural and Artistic Education that was implemented by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science in 1999 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 did increase the student participation in high culture, but did not increase student participation in popular culture. The effect of the intervention is, however, small. While student characteristics did not aect the observed differences in high cultural participation over time, the fraction of immigrant students in the class did: 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.