European inventory of
societal values of culture

Riie Heikkilä - Understanding Cultural Non-Participation in an Egalitarian Context

Heikkilä, R. (2022). Understanding Cultural Non-Participation in an Egalitarian Context. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-031-18864-0

This book summarises the main theoretical debates and studies on cultural non-participation. It is an empirical study on cultural non-participation in Finland, based on qualitative interview data. The book concludes that cultural non-participation is at least partly a methodological artefact. Namely, many contemporary surveys fail to observe the many mundane activities people engage in. On the other hand, cultural non-participation accumulates; there is a cleavage between generally active groups and people that participate only in everyday pursuits. The latter group often fosters hostile attitudes towards cultural participation in general. The book also discusses the challenges of cultural policy in subverting the already existing hierarchies of cultural participation.