Cultural practices, age and the life course

Social science studies of cultural activity commonly focus on class, gender and ethnicity and often treat age as an unimportant background variable. This article demonstrates the central importance of age as a factor affecting cultural consumption, using data from the “Taking Part” Survey of England. As well as seeking to describe the main aspects of age differentiation, the article unpacks what is often called, in a simplified way, “age effects”. The socio-historical dynamics leading to the existence of age effects are examined, first theoretically, and second, through some empirical examples (doing sport, playing a musical instrument/singing, cinema, visiting exhibitions or collections of art/photography/sculpture, doing textile crafts). A number of influences are shown to account for the importance of age: health, the individual life course, the different socio-economic background of cohorts and other, more complex cohort effects. Possible interpretations of these cohort effects on cultural practices are discussed at the end of the article.