Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey, United States, 2015, 2018, 2022 (ICPSR 38196)
Version Date: Oct 16, 2024 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Mariët Westermann, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation;
Liam Sweeney, Ithaka S+R;
Roger C. Schonfeld, Ithaka S+R
Series:
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38196.v3
Version V3 (see more versions)
Summary View help for Summary
These data were gathered on behalf of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, in partnership with the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) and the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD). The goal of the survey was to study the representational diversity within art museums through quantitative means. The survey instrument, developed by Ithaka S+R, was administered to directors of AAMD and AAM member art museums. The first cycle of data were collected in 2015 (February-March 2015), the second cycle in 2018 (July-September 2018), and the third cycle in 2022 (February-April 2022). The collected data were sent to researchers at Ithaka S+R, who appended, cleaned and analyzed the data, and presented findings in a public research report.
The survey collected demographic and employment data for over 30,000 museum employees. About 27,000 of these are employed at AAMD museums, and approximately 3,000 are from (non-AAMD) AAM member museums. 332 art museums responded to the survey in 2018 and 136 of them also participated in the survey in 2015. The third cycle gathered data from 328 museums in North America between February and April 2022, encompassing records for over 30,000 individuals.
The 2018 instrument was slightly expanded to capture additional specifics of the composition of art museum employees. For the third cycle, significant enhancements were made to the survey instrument, particularly in expanding the position and race categories, separating categories such as "Finance" and "Human Resources," as well as "Information Technology" and "Web Development," which were combined in the previous survey. Additionally, new positions such as "Librarian," "Public Engagement," and "Diversity/Equity/Inclusion" were included to better track changes in these areas. The data gathered in the third wave of the study offer valuable insights into the evolving demographics of the museum sector and the pandemic's impact on staffing.
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Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
Distributor(s) View help for Distributor(s)
Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)
Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Time Method View help for Time Method
Universe View help for Universe
Art museums belonging to the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) or the American Alliance of Museums (AAM)
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
Mode of Data Collection View help for Mode of Data Collection
Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables
Variables include job category, race, ethnicity, employment status, and gender.
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2022-05-31
Version History View help for Version History
Changes to the variable label and a value label for AFFILIATION were made in the 2022 dataset
2024-05-01 2022 data were added to the collection.
2022-05-31 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Performed consistency checks.
- Created variable labels and/or value labels.
- Created online analysis version with question text.
- Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.
- Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
Notes
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.