Arts and Culture for Social Cohesion

Arts & Culture for Social Cohesion

Culture and arts can be strong drivers of development, social cohesion, and change.  At the heart of social cohesion is social inclusion. Communities with low social cohesion often have low involvement or access to civic engagement, economic opportunity, and social participation. Supporting the role of culture is vital to building social cohesion.

Culture is essential for avoiding conflicts and for conflict resolution. It is an ideal means of communicating across language barriers, empowering people and facilitating social cohesion, including among refugees, migrants and host populations. It prevents marginalisation of people based on their cultural identity, socioeconomic status, age and other factors.
 
The Community Engagement Panel for Arts & Culture considered how increasing Arts & Culture offerings in town centres encouraged people to use town centres with a knock-on effect of increased footfall to retail, hospitality businesses and other high street amenities.

With this policy lab we aim to:

Raise the profile of arts and culture events and activities locally.

▪ Widen engagement with arts and culture offerings by developing an understanding of how to reach a broader range of the community.

▪ Understand what other kinds of arts and culture events/activities we could be offering.

▪ Understand what groups and voices could be better represented within arts and culture activities (for example, this could include more LGBTQ exhibitions or history events related to a particular culture)

This project demonstrates how to work with partners and other CCIN members collaboratively to establish co-operative working, both within and across local areas.

For example, it showcases how creatives are encouraged to work together via arts and culture networks, as well as demonstrates how neighbouring authorities can work together on arts and culture offerings. The project will also identify how to drive change by understanding how we can reach a broader section of the community to engage in our arts and culture offerings and ensure they are represented in the events and activities. In doing so, this improves outcomes, including social cohesion, social and civic participation, life satisfaction and health, as well as the local economy.