This report, commissioned from the NORC at the University of Chicago, investigates the relationship between arts education and arts participation, based on data from the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts for 1982, 1992, 2002, and 2008. The report also examines long-term declines in Americans' reported rates of arts learning—in creative writing, music, and the visual arts, among other disciplines. Authors Nick Rabkin and E.C. Hedberg find that the declines are not distributed evenly across all racial and ethnic groups.