Data from five national studies collected over 22 years reveal differences in US school-aged children's museum attendance

Released online last month, this article purports to be “the first large-scale study of museum attendance among school-aged youth in the US.” Authors Crispin and Beck noted prior research indicating that museum attendance increases children’s academic outcomes and can develop their cultural capital. But which schoolchildren take advantage of those benefits? Most research about who attends museums, and how often, has focused on adults. To fill that gap, Crispin and Beck use five nationally representative datasets that span from kindergarten to high school, and from 1987 to 2009, in order to provide a comprehensive descriptive analysis of the characteristics associated with museum attendance among 5- to 18-year-olds. Specifically, they used the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study of Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K) first grade and third grade survey rounds; the original two cohorts of the 1987 Longitudinal Survey of American Youth (LSAY); the base year of the National Education Longitudinal Survey of 1988 (NELS:88), the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS); and three survey waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Child Development Supplement (PSID-CDS). All but the PSID-CDS data are distributed by the Child and Family Data Archive (CFData), the National Archive of Data on Arts & Culture, or the General Archive at ICPSR.

Specifically, Crispin and Beck used questions asked in all of the studies of children and/or their parents about their museum attendance, as well other information collected about socioeconomic status, sex, race/ethnicity, urbanicity, US region, and museum type (i.e., art or science). With these data, the authors could conduct analyses to identify key characteristics that are highly correlated with museum attendance (socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, gender), as well as characteristics associated with a higher frequency of attendance and attendance at specific types of museums. Their findings show that 30-50 percent of youth are not typically attending museums, with only about half attending a museum in the previous year. And they found notable differences in museum attendance by socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, gender, and location. Lower socioeconomic status meant lower likelihood of attendance. Girls attended science museums far less in the earlier samples from the late 1980s, but data collected after 2009 showed more girls attending science museums than boys. They also found that disparities in attendance were clear in the South and in rural areas of the country, which may have to do with access, since only 26 percent of museums are located in rural areas. The authors noted that their findings were generally consistent across datasets, despite the different measures of museum attendance. Therefore, according to the authors, these findings suggested that “policies to improve access to museums for youth, particularly those in low-income households or rural areas . . . may be beneficial for promoting wider cultural, artistic, and hands-on STEAM opportunities.”

The authors also noted that their descriptive analysis did not address “the relationship between museum attendance and outcomes.” Rather, these findings were meant to contribute to future studies of museum attendance and its impact on things like test scores, self-esteem, high school graduation rates, and college attendance and completion.