Resources wanted - cultural diversity, youth, arts

August 27, 2008 3:20 PM

Cultural diversity, youth, and the arts/creative industries - where do I start looking for resources?

I'm doing a work placement with an Australian youth arts organization (non-profit) that provides advice and services to young emerging artists. I've been tasked with preparing a cultural diversity strategy, both to get more young people from culturally diverse backgrounds using their services, and also to make their current programs more respectful of cultural needs.

I've never actually written a strategy paper before, but I personally find the topic interesting so I'd like to do as much work as possible. I'd like to know where I can get more information.

I'm guessing this is largely a question of terminology, as searching for resources in my local libraries haven't given me much - what should I be looking for? So far I can think of:

* Brisbane/Australia's policies re: cultural diversity and the arts sector
* How other countries and cultures regard the arts and creative industries (no idea how to search for this)
* Examples of strategy papers
* Efforts in integrating different cultures, not just with young people and/or the arts world

What else should I be looking at? What resources fit the above list and what else should go on that list? Are there any universities/organizations that would be helpful?

How does a strategy paper look like anyway? It seems like right now I'm writing a plan for a strategy paper. (This project is only a week old so far so there are opportunities for adjustment.)

The org is Queensland-based and has offices in Caboolture and Brisbane, but resources from anywhere in the world are fine. My supervisor's worked in Eastern Europe and USA, and I'm from Malaysia, so we're all pretty good at taking our multicultural backgrounds and incorporating it into our work. I don't want to rely on stereotypes though, so I'd like to look at as much info from everywhere.

posted by divabat to Media & Arts (3 answers total)

I think what you've got planned out seems fine so far... I would say, remember a strategy is supposed to be something that will guide future work, not get in the way. Don't get bogged down with the writing of the strategy - it's great that they want one and that you can do it, but I've found sometimes people get so hung up on the policies and the strategies, they forget about the real work.

Also, in regards to cultural diversity, make sure whatever you do fits in with the Australian perspective on these issues. I know from experience of doing similar work in the UK, you can easily find yourself with information and resources from the USA which is skewed towards their society and culture.

For ideas on what to put in it, and what a strategy should look like, when I do similar work I often start by googling "xxxxx strategy" and finding out what other people have done before.

Like I said, I've done similar things before myself, so I can probably give you more pointers, but it's late here. Send me a message.
posted by Helga-woo at 3:53 PM on August 27, 2008

If you are looking for resources from another coutnry to compare with Australia then UK Government arts funding is channelled through the Arts Council by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Amongst many other things they run Creative Partnerships, aimed at schools, and the Decibel programme, aimed at Black and Minority Ethnic artists. For the UK creative industries read Work Foundation report.
posted by ninebelow at 3:40 AM on August 28, 2008

This dropped in my inbox this morning, you might find it useful (It's a PDF)
posted by Helga-woo at 3:45 AM on August 28, 2008