By Erin Blakemore | Smithsonian.com
Every year, thousands of teenagers participate in programs at their local art museums. But do any of them remember their time at museum events later in life? A new report suggests that the answer is yes—and finds that alumni of arts-based museum programs credit them with changing the course of their lives, even years after the fact.
The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Walker Art Center, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles recently commissioned a study to find out how effective their longstanding teen arts programs really are. They recruited over 300 former participants of four programs for teens that have been in existence since the 1990s. Alumni, whose current ages range from 18 to 36, were given a questionnaire and invited to focus groups and profile sessions to find out how they viewed their participation years after the fact. Read full article>>
