Taking Part Survey

6 September 2010

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport have released the latest findings of the Taking Part Survey which show an increase in the proportion of 11-15 year olds who have visited a museum, gallery or archive in the last year.

Since 2006/07 there has been an increase in the proportion of 11-15 year olds who have visited a museum, gallery or archive in the last year (from 54.7% in 2006/07 to 66.8% in 2009/10).

While adult visits to libraries have dropped over the last five years, children’s visits remained stable.

Visits by children aged 11-15 remained static over the five-year period, with 71.6% using their local service.

Records for children aged 5-11 only began in 2008. They showed an insignificant decline, from 75.3% to 74.9%.

There is a strong relationship between cultural engagement and deprivation. People who live in the most deprived areas of England are significantly less likely than people in the least deprived areas to visit museums and galleries, heritage sites and public libraries.

They are also less likely to engage in the arts. In many cases, the differences between these two groups is considerable – for example, people in the least deprived areas (84.2%) are more than twice as likely to visit a heritage site than those in the most deprived areas (39.8%).

The biggest ‘drop off’ in engagement happens between ages 11-15 and 16-24, e.g. in 2009/10, 66.8 per cent of 11-15 year olds had visited a museum or gallery compared with 36.7 per cent of 16-24 year olds. This happens to varying degrees across all the culture and sport sectors analysed in this report, and it is believed that this is most likely a result of leaving school.