Documentation, Informaiton & Knowledge ›› 2025, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (4): 66-77.doi: 10.13366/j.dik.2025.04.066

• Academic Focus(1): Citizen Night School • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Citizen Art Night School: Supply-Side Innovation of Youth-Oriented Public Cultural Services

JIN Wugang, DUAN Jiahan, XIE Yanyu   

  1. Department of Information Management, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062
  • Online:2025-07-10 Published:2025-08-16
  • Contact: Correspondence should be addressed to JIN Wugang, Email: wgjin@infor.ecnu.edu.cn, ORCID:0000-0001-8922-1835
  • Supported by:
    This is an outcome of the Youth Project "Research on Public Library Service for the Protection of Cultural Rights and Interests of Urban Floating Youth"(23CTQ011)supported by National Social Science Foundation of China.

Abstract: [Purpose/Significance] The Citizen Art Night School(CANS)offers public welfare art training services specifically tailored for young residents, marking a significant innovation in supply-side reform of public cultural services . It is expected to become a path for the high-quality development of public cultural services with "Chinese-style Modernization" characteristics. [Design/Methodology] This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the main-branch system mode of operation and course content provision of the CANS, and reveals the focus of public evaluation and affective attitude based on the online text mining, then explores the factors behind its success. [Findings/Conclusion] The research finds are presented as follows:(1)The CANS is distinguished by late opening, preferential fee, and city-wide coverage. It has rapidly expanded from Shanghai to nationwide, winning widespread acclaim.(2)The reasons for the great success of the CANS include a comprehensive curriculum that meets diverse needs, a distinctive content that resonates with young people, a well-timed schedule ideal for office workers, a convenient and widespread locations facilitating easy access, a high-quality faculty ensuring teaching excellence, and transparent pricing policies that are beneficial to the people.(3)Fundamentally, the success of the CANS is inseparable from its accumulated substantial course resources, a robust organizational platform under the main-branch system on culture centers, the supportive preferential fee policies, and its technological advancements.(4)The CANS has a demonstrative role in shaping public cultural venues to be more youth-friendly, facilitating extended services, enhancing urban quality, and expanding social circles for young people.(5)In promoting the CANS, it is crucial to balance the existing and additional public cultural services, beginner-level and advanced courses, demand and guidance, and institutions and platforms of public cultural services. [Originality/Value] This paper provides a systematic overview and in-depth study of the CANS from the supply-side perspective, contributes a comprehensive reference for cultural centers across the country to promote the construction of art night schools, and provides an implementation path for the high-quality development of public cultural service.

Keywords: Citizen Art Night School, Public cultural service, Supply-side reform, Youth-oriented, Office workers