Mapping cultural sector activities for older people from global majority backgrounds in the UK: learnings from the TOUS study

Studies have shown that engagement with cultural activities can improve older people’s wellbeing. However, there is a paucity of evidence about engaging older people from global majority backgrounds in such activities. Available cultural activities may not always be appropriate or acceptable to people from diverse communities. Reasons for this may be connected to the location and venue of the activities offered, lack of representation or to language barriers. It has been suggested that locating cultural initiatives in spaces that are familiar, and where individuals have existing relationships, encourages older adults to participate.

The TOUS study

The TOUS study (Tailoring cultural Offers with and for diverse older Users of Social prescribing) is a realist evaluation that set out to develop evidence-based recommendations for involving older people from global majority communities in creative or cultural activities. These activities may form part of a social prescription. Realist evaluation is a theory-driven approach often used to make sense of complex interventions or programmes. ‘Cultural’ has been described in multiple ways. ‘Cultural offers’ for the TOUS study were defined as heritage (e.g. museums), performance (e.g. singing, dancing), visual arts, literature, and audio-visual activities.

Mapping cultural provision for older people from global majority backgrounds

The first phase of the TOUS study involved a scoping review of the existing literature. In parallel, we conducted a ‘mapping exercise’ - an online questionnaire for cultural sector providers to complete. The questionnaire aimed to identify the nature and distribution of existing cultural provision for older people from global majority groups in the four nations of the UK. It also sought to gather insights on how cultural organisations or groups tailor cultural offers for older people from global majority groups. The research team used information from the questionnaire and follow up conversations with organisations to explore their responses and to assess their suitability to serve as cases for the next part of the TOUS study.

Six provider organisations were selected as our cases for more detailed investigation using focused ethnographies; data collection included observations, interviews and Storytelling. Storytelling is a method that collects, edits and synthesises stories from activity participants to better understand their most significant change whilst taking part in a specified programme or project. In addition, key informant interviews were conducted with a subset of questionnaire respondents to explore in more depth the challenges of engaging with older people from global majority groups. In this blog, we focus on the mapping exercise.

Getting responses

The mapping questionnaire ran from October 2023 to January 2024. We initially contacted national cultural organisations, inviting them to distribute the questionnaire on our behalf to their members. When this led to a limited number of responses, we targeted smaller organisations and groups. We also used research team contacts and used snowball sampling. Responses and recruitment strategies are detailed in Figure 1.

Figure 1:  Flow chart showing our sampling strategy and demonstrating how we reached our targets for case studies.

Summary of questionnaire responses

46 organisations completed the mapping questionnaire from across the UK; most from South-East England and London (n=17). We had few responses from Scotland (n=1) and Northern Ireland (n=1). Contacts in Wales came from a research team member with personal knowledge of the area; she was an ‘insider,’ able to encourage and support local organisations to complete the questionnaire.

63% of responses were from small organisations with either under 10 employees (n=17) or under 50 employees (n=12). They might have limited administrative support, which could have contributed to poor response rates to the questionnaire from other similar organisations. However, only 7 responses were received from larger organisations (with over 250 employees); most were libraries. We were interested in hearing from organisations providing activities or running groups that were developed for, or with, older people (aged 60 or older) from global majority groups. Several respondents suggested they were engaging with or attracting older people or global majority groups but not both. Of the 7 larger organisations, only one was running activities for older people from global majority groups.   

Some organisations were organising activities such as exercise classes that did not match the TOUS study’s definition of ‘cultural’. Some were not collecting data on ethnicity or age. Only half of all respondents were clearly running activities or groups specifically for, or with, older people from global majority backgrounds.

Reflections on the mapping exercise

Both the questionnaire responses and subsequent conversations with potential case sites highlighted tensions and challenges for cultural sector organisations, and researchers wishing to study their work. Place-based cultural initiatives are often community-led and run by small organisations, or small teams within larger organisations. Such organisations may not have capacity to engage in non-income generating activities (such as data monitoring or research participation) as they are focused on delivering services and fundraising. Providing incentives for research engagement may help to ensure that these small organisations are able to take part.

The ‘top down’ approach of initially contacting large national organisations to cascade the questionnaire proved less fruitful than a ‘ground up’ approach of contacting community organisations and investigating multiple local contacts. However, this second approach was resource intensive and limited by the scale and duration of the TOUS study. Research team contacts and snowball sampling were helpful in identifying organisations, but they sometimes produced dead ends where short-term projects had ceased because of funding termination or organisations were struggling to secure regular attendance of older people.

Several questionnaire respondents were primarily providers of social support, advocacy or other services (such as day care organisations). They provided some cultural activities, such as craft or music, but this formed a small percentage of the activities offered, over a limited time scale.

Despite the difficulties outlined above, responses to the online questionnaire did allow us to identify six cases (organisations or groups) to work with during the next phase of the TOUS study (for the focussed ethnographies). It also enabled us to develop initial lines of enquiry and early theories for follow-up in the case studies. These included the following:

A)      Space and place

Spaces and places where cultural activities are held are important and carry meaning. Older people may prefer to be involved in activities where they have trusted social connections, located close to their local community. The focussed ethnographies explored the significance of spaces, what influences whether people feel at ease in different settings, and how organisations adapt environments to welcome older people from global majority backgrounds.

B)      Defining ‘cultural’ and its relationship with the social

While several questionnaire respondents stated they offered cultural activities, on closer enquiry our initial definitions of ‘cultural ‘activity did not always match theirs. Questionnaire responses highlighted how definitions of culture are socially constructed and that a more inclusive conceptualisation was required. For example, some organisations viewed festivals —including activities like preparing and sharing food—as cultural events. This prompted the research team to modify our definition to include food and festivals as cultural activities.

C)      Funding for organisational infrastructure

The capacity of organisations to tailor cultural activities with and for underserved populations, and to engage in research, was evident from the mapping exercise and conversations with potential sites. Lack of recurrent funding for community engagement work, and the nature of short-term funding to cover staff salaries, transport and to employ facilitators or artists were reasons organisations gave for not being able to connect with the target population on a sustained basis. Infrastructure requirements to ensure inclusivity was further explored in the focussed ethnographies.

Conclusions

Our mapping exercise (questionnaire) was successful identifying six organisations providing cultural activities for older people from global majority groups across the UK for the next phase or our study. However, it was a challenge to identify this type of provision, possibly because we were not initially able to reach smaller organisations providing such offers. In addition, responses indicated that smaller cultural sector providers faced challenges in ensuring their offers were accessible and engaging for these groups. These constraints may mean that older people, as well as social prescribers and other service providers, might struggle to find sufficient and suitable cultural provision to support their health and wellbeing. 

The TOUS study mentioned in this blog was funded by a grant from UK Research and Innovation (MR/Y010000/1). The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the funder or the author’s host institution.