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Culture is Bad for You

Inequality in the Cultural and Creative Industries
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Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Culture is Bad for You challenges the optimistic narratives promoted by governments and arts organisations that culture universally benefits society. The authors explore how race, class, and gender intersect to create exclusion within cultural and creative industries. They argue that barriers to cultural participation and employment begin early in life, disproportionately affecting women, people of colour, and working-class individuals. Without addressing these inequalities affecting both workforce and audience, culture’s full positive impact on society remains unrealised.
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book is ideal for students, academics, cultural policymakers, and professionals in the arts and creative industries, as well as readers interested in social justice and equality within cultural sectors.

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The book demonstrates that cultural jobs are the preserve of the most privileged, a 'creative class' in society, and always have been: there was no golden age for social mobility in culture. It shows how women, people of colour, and those of working class origins are missing from key parts of the workforce and audience for culture.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Culture will keep you fit and healthy. Culture will bring communities together. Culture will improve your education. This is the message from governments and arts organisations across the country. However, this book explains why we need to be cautious about culture.

Offering a powerful call to transform the cultural and creative industries, Culture is Bad for You examines the intersections between race, class, and gender in the mechanisms of exclusion in cultural occupations. Exclusion from culture begins at an early age, the authors argue, and despite claims by cultural institutions and businesses to hire talented and hardworking individuals, women, people of colour, and those from working-class backgrounds are systematically disbarred. While the inequalities that characterise both workforce and audience remain unaddressed, the positive contribution culture makes to society can never be fully realised.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

β€˜Culture is Bad for You’ has been praised as an essential and empirical investigation into inequalities within cultural production. Kit de Waal highlights its power to articulate experiences of exclusion in the arts, while Jennifer C. Lena welcomes it as vital reading for policymakers, employers, artists, and the wider public concerned with unequal access to culture and its consequences.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781526144164

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 14 September 2020

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Manchester University Press

Illustration: 26 black & white illustrations; 5 tables

Audience: Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 22.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 417g

Pages: 384

About the Author

Orian Brook is an AHRC Creative and Digital Economy Innovation Leadership Fellow at the University of Edinburgh

Dave O'Brien is a Chancellor's Fellow in Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Edinburgh

Mark Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Methods at the University of Sheffield

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