Dave O'Brien

The revised and updated edition of this popular title shines a light on the precarious situation of art workers today. Culture keeps you fit and healthy. Culture brings communities together. Culture improves your education. This is the message endlessly repeated by the government and arts organisations. But as this ground-breaking book explains, we need to be cautious about culture. Culture is bad for you presents an unflinching portrait of the cultural landscape in the UK today. It reveals how women, people of colour and those from working-class backgrounds are systematically excluded, despite the claims of cultural institutions and businesses. Updated to provide a report on the situation after COVID, this edition reveals that despite grand promises from those at the top, exclusion and precarity remain the norm. While inequalities of workforce and audience remain unaddressed, the positive contribution culture makes to society can never be fully realised. This book offers a powerful call to transform cultural and creative industries.

The revised and updated edition of this popular title shines a light on the precarious situation of art workers today. Culture keeps you fit and healthy. Culture brings communities together. Culture improves your education. This is the message endlessly repeated by the government and arts organisations. But as this ground-breaking book explains, we need to be cautious about culture. Culture is bad for you presents an unflinching portrait of the cultural landscape in the UK today. It reveals how women, people of colour and those from working-class backgrounds are systematically excluded, despite the claims of cultural institutions and businesses. Updated to provide a report on the situation after COVID, this edition reveals that despite grand promises from those at the top, exclusion and precarity remain the norm. While inequalities of workforce and audience remain unaddressed, the positive contribution culture makes to society can never be fully realised. This book offers a powerful call to transform cultural and creative industries.

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.

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.

Contemporary society is complex; governed and administered by a range of contradictory policies, practices and techniques. Nowhere are these contradictions more keenly felt than in cultural policy. This book uses insights from a range of disciplines to aid the reader in understanding contemporary cultural policy. Drawing on a range of case studies, including analysis of the reality of work in the creative industries, urban regeneration and current government cultural policy in the UK, the book discusses the idea of value in the cultural sector, showing how value plays out in cultural organizations. Uniquely, the book crosses disciplinary boundaries to present a thorough introduction to the subject. As a result, the book will be of interest to a range of scholars across arts management, public and nonprofit management, cultural studies, sociology and political science. It will also be essential reading for those working in the arts, culture and public policy.

Contemporary society is complex; governed and administered by a range of contradictory policies, practices and techniques. Nowhere are these contradictions more keenly felt than in cultural policy. This book uses insights from a range of disciplines to aid the reader in understanding contemporary cultural policy. Drawing on a range of case studies, including analysis of the reality of work in the creative industries, urban regeneration and current government cultural policy in the UK, the book discusses the idea of value in the cultural sector, showing how value plays out in cultural organizations. Uniquely, the book crosses disciplinary boundaries to present a thorough introduction to the subject. As a result, the book will be of interest to a range of scholars across arts management, public and nonprofit management, cultural studies, sociology and political science. It will also be essential reading for those working in the arts, culture and public policy.