Strengthening families

Taking part in cultural activities together as a family helps to make families strong and stable, providing them with shared memories, history and happiness as well as resilience when times are hard.

To date the focus of family involvement in culture has largely been looked at through one dimension: children’s participation in cultural activities via Government intervention such as free museums. Yet this research and our conversations with parents have led us to identify a need to change arts and culture policy to further break down access barriers for all families.

See our press release: Arts and Culture are essential for Strong and Stable Families argues national charity

Parents' Views on Creative and Cultural Education (IPSOS MORI)

Creativity, Culture and Education commissioned this research because it wants to put the experiences of children and families at the heart of what it does. The purpose of this project was to survey the views of parents about their children’s creative education and experiences, and to look at the demand among parents for this type of learning opportunity in the classroom.

Ipsos Mori Parental Report For CCE (452 KB)

CCE families focus group research

Interested in finding out more about the barriers to accessing arts and culture as a family, Creativity, Culture and Education has conducted research with focus groups of mothers without educational qualifications. As expected, some barriers to accessing cultural activities are practical and linked to family finances with many parents concerned about hidden costs such as providing food or worrying about children wanting to stop at the gift shop on a day out.

However, much of the testimony from parents in the qualitative research revealed more emotional reasons for not taking part. The majority displayed a lack of knowledge of their area and many were unsure of what to expect of new experiences and what might be expected of them in new situations.

CCE Families Campaign Research (2.5 MB)

Evaluation of the Find Your Talent programme by Ipsos MORI

Ipsos MORI, working with SQW Consulting, conducted quantitative surveys of parents and children in ten Find Your Talent pathfinder areas across England. The research was conducted on behalf of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).

Ipsos Mori evaluation of the Find Your Talent project (532 KB)

Their learning becomes your journey: Parents respond to children’s work in Creative Partnerships (CLPE)
2007

Research investigating how parent-child relationships are affected by Creative Partnerships. This research was prompted by anecdotal evidence and observations in previous research projects (Safford & Barrs 2005, Ellis & Safford 2005) that children communicate their enjoyment of school-based creative projects to their parents to a much greater extent than their work in the core literacy and numeracy curriculum. Data here confirm this: according to parent informants, when children are engaged in short-term or long-term creative projects they extensively describe these experiences at home.

Clpe Parental Involvement Their Learning Becomes Your Journey (2.2 MB)