Research into Regional Cultural Participation

Joop de Jong and his research team, consisting of Sandra van Helden and Ward Schoonbrood, have been commissioned by Tout Maastricht, with financial support of the Municipality of Maastricht, to prepare the questionnaire for a survey on cultural participation in Maastricht. In November 2017, 12,000 residents of Maastricht, age 6 years and older, Dutch and non-Dutch, received a printed questionnaire with 44 questions on cultural participation (in Dutch and English).

An online version was also available. For this survey, Maastricht was divided into seven districts in order to get more specific information on culture in the city. The results will be published by the municipal government in February 2018, before the local elections in March. Stichting Tout Maastricht is an independent network organisation in Maastricht, promoting cultural participation through cultural education, community arts and other cultural programmes for youngsters and elderly people, cultural entrepreneurship, and cultural exchange and cooperation. Research 2Evolve, an office for opinion and marketing research in Hilversum, also participated in the project.

Tout Maastricht has also commissioned Joop de Jong and the above mentioned research team to analyse and evaluate the effects of the cultural education programme Toon je Talent (Show your Talent) on the cultural participation of children studying in group 8 in primary schools in Maastricht. The research on the effects on cultural participation of this long-term education programme (ending in 2021) is using digital questionnaires and will be repeated every year. Toon je Talent is a cultural education programme for elementary schools in Maastricht. This programme, run by Caleidoscoop, receives support from Tout Maastricht, the Municipality of Maastricht and the national Fonds voor Cultuurparticipatie.