Investigating Declining Trends in Arts Field Trip Attendance

Abstract

The common narrative in arts education circles is that educational field trip attendance has declined for decades. However, there has been little rigorous evidence to support this claim. This study reports longitudinal K-12 field trip attendance data from 18 leading art museums in 16 states and the District of Columbia. This study also uses data from interviews, observations, and site visits across 35 states to document the impacts of policy, pressures, and practices on art museum field trip attendance. I find that field trips to most art museums included in this study have declined over time. Education program administrators attribute the cause for the decline to various issues, but accountability policies and the pressure of standardized testing are the most often cited. To compete for field trip attendance, many art museums have sought outside funding to subsidize the cost of field trip attendance and remove cost barriers. Additionally, this study reports on lesser-known barriers to field trip attendance, such as transportation, limited capacity due to restricted hours, changing arts advocates in schools, and how the demographic homogeneity of volunteer docents makes field trips less inclusive.

Keywords: Education policy, accountability pressure, field trips, informal learning, experiential learning, arts education, museum education, arts integration, equity, access, cultural capital, social capital, social-emotional learning, SEL, cultural organizations