'You come as a human being…': exploring sense of equality in arts interventions through an ethnographic study of Shared Reading

Research shows that the arts hold a particular potential for promoting health, well-being and social inclusion for vulnerable people. However, the use and consumption of the arts tend to be socially skewed in favour of people with high cultural, social and economic capital. While extensive research...

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Published in:Medical humanities Vol. 51; no. 1; p. 4
Main Authors: Kristensen, Mette Marie, Rod, Morten Hulvej, Simonsen, Peter, Folker, Anna Paldam
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States BMJ Publishing Group LTD 01.03.2025
Subjects:
Access
Adult
Anthropology, Cultural
Art galleries & museums
Arts
Capital
Connectedness
Cultural capital
Equal rights
Equality
Ethnography
Female
Health education
Health promotion
Humans
Inclusion
Inequality
Intervention
Investigations
Literature
Male
Meaning
Reading
Reading instruction
Relatedness
Roles
Shared reading
Social integration
Social Interaction
Social roles
Vulnerability
Vulnerable Populations
Well being
United Kingdom > UK
Denmark
Literature
Medical humanities
Qualitative Research
arts in health/arts and health
Public health
ISSN:1468-215X, 1473-4265, 1473-4265
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Research shows that the arts hold a particular potential for promoting health, well-being and social inclusion for vulnerable people. However, the use and consumption of the arts tend to be socially skewed in favour of people with high cultural, social and economic capital. While extensive research has been conducted on how to create equal access to arts activities for vulnerable groups, little research has investigated how to ensure meaningful engagement with the arts by this group. Shared Reading (SR) has had considerable success in engaging vulnerable groups in collective literary practices, and research suggests that this may partly be due to the unique forms of social and literary engagement that the concept fosters. These forms of engagement, we suggest, lay the foundation for a sense of equality among participants that may promote social connectedness and well-being. On this basis, the present study aims to investigate whether and how a sense of equality may play a role in SR practices. The study found that SR promotes a sense of equality by creating a space where social interaction and relatedness does not hinge on social roles, but rather on lived experiences-and vulnerabilities inherent to these-conveyed through literary texts and shared among participants. However, to promote a sense of equality in SR, meaningful engagement for all participants must be ensured, making facilitation an essential element of SR practices and an important focus in arts interventions in general. We conclude that SR, and arts interventions more generally, may be a promising way to promote a sense of equality, but further research is needed on the specific qualities of and potential contexts for the promotion of a sense of equality.
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ISSN:1468-215X
1473-4265
1473-4265
DOI:10.1136/medhum-2024-012963