The Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage from the Perspective of Civic Participation: The Informal Education of Chinese Embroidery Handicrafts

Abstract

Heritage education can enable social empowerment. Within the broader goal of social empowerment, a current challenge is to establish principles that promote social participation in traditional education. The practice of protecting intangible cultural heritage in China has developed its own unique working model based on the basic theoretical level of UNESCO. This research used cultural citizenship as a theoretical guide, focused on the traditional embroidery craftsmanship of China’s intangible cultural heritage, and conducted exploratory research on the learning intention and value influence indicators of citizens participating in intangible cultural heritage. The research design of this study was divided into two phases: the first phase was designed to collect evaluation indicators that affect the learning of intangible cultural heritage skills, and to support these data using semi-structured in-depth interviews. In the second phase, the convergence of the value indicators that affect the learning of intangible cultural heritage techniques was completed using questionnaire surveys and statistical analyses. Factor analysis was performed using SPSS software. SEM (structural equation modeling) confirmatory analysis was performed using Amos software. Through a two-stage hybrid study, a value recognition scale for the informal educational inheritance of intangible cultural heritage handicrafts was obtained within the local context of China. The scale contains four first-level indicators (ICH’s authenticity, cultural identity, performed value, and social recognition) and 17 second-level indicators. The research results were based on UNESCO’s education indicators for SDG 4, and put forward principles for practices aimed at protecting China’s intangible cultural heritage’s local informal education. Reflecting on the Chinese tradition of citizen participation in protecting intangible cultural heritage could provide references for the practice of intangible cultural heritage protection in other fields and regions. This is consistent with the UN’s SDG 4.7 (ensure all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development).

1. Introduction

1.1. Intangible Cultural Heritage and Civic Cultural Participation

The safeguarding and protection of intangible cultural heritage (hereinafter referred to as ICH) is quickly becoming an international social and cultural movement with a vast range of influences. Different countries, groups, and individuals have diverse requirements and carry out different protection practices according to their specific contexts. In order to promote greater engagement and broader participation, ICH safeguarding has developed from a single-industry concept to one that requires involvement across multiple fields of society. It can be applied in numerous ways, from the protection of donations to the sustainable development path of diversified empowerment (Figure 1). The reality is that, under the government-led administrative management model, China’s ICH safeguarding work primarily focuses on health care functionality. It does not effectively fulfill the upward incentive function [1]. Therefore, it is necessary to mobilize the enthusiasm and creativity of ICH safeguarding’s subjects, to encourage them to participate in ICH safeguarding work, and to establish a relationship between them and ICH to promote the continuous performance of ICH safeguarding’s social functions.

The international community regards ICH safeguarding as a scientific work related to human rights. The safeguarding and use of ICH have become increasingly social, making these social and cultural affairs more vibrant and sustainable. When others—represented herein by the government, academia, and commercial organizations—habitually rely on their absolute discursive power and powerful social resources to intervene in the inheritance of ICH, the cultural subject will passively drift outside the scope of safeguarding. Thus, owners of economic capital and executives of administrative power must go beyond their duties. Such behavior strengthens the consciousness of the weakest cultural subjects. The cultural subject status of citizens has gradually declined, and the role of citizens has steadily shifted away from “the fringe of participation” to “the participation of the fringe” [2] (Figure 2). For citizens, cultural heritage has become another culture, and the government’s protection in good faith has caused the disappearance of their subjective status and undermined the continuation of cultural vitality. Therefore, ICH safeguarding needs to reflect on how to ensure social empowerment across both inheritance rights and human rights and ensure that citizens have the conditions and opportunities to participate in cultural communities at the local, national, and global levels.

Robert D. Putnam [3] stated his belief that social capital was deeply embedded in various factors that affect citizen participation, and that it becomes a glue for citizen participation in a reciprocal social network. However, the concept of participation varies according to environment. In the context of post modernization, the key feature of the word participation is related to politics and media, and participation must be embedded in the extended political outlook [4]. The new experience of political participation comes from daily practice. For participating subjects, how to choose a way to define citizenship has become essential to citizen participation [5]. Participation in cultural activities or cultural organizations is one of the basic elements of cultural citizenship. Cultural citizenship is related to the participation of individual citizens in cultural events and the creation of systems and projects to promote cultural participation in their communities [6]. Flores [7] has argued that cultural citizenship is a way for people to organize their own values, rights, and beliefs. Moreover, it creates a common, unified feeling of cultural belonging and is flexible and actionable. Cultural citizenship is the result of the combined forces of self-making and being-made [8], which means that individual effort and initiative can play just as important a role in people’s lives as the forces that underpin the social systems in which they operate. The core idea behind these two views is “citizen participation.” Through participation, people not only develop as individuals but also become interconnected with others. Figure 3 shows the relationship between cultural heritage education under the guidance of cultural policies and implementation in citizens’ cultural lives. Citizen cultural heritage education from national cultural policy expands the way individuals participate in public. The top-down cultural approach has promoted citizens’ participation in the protection of cultural heritage. Thus, citizen participation close to personal life experience is conducive to fostering a sense of community belonging, increasing informal social connections between citizens, and strengthening citizens’ cultural education. With an increase in citizen participation, social capital has also been accumulated, including establishing public values, norms of reciprocity, social trust, and social relationship networks. Social capital in the civic community encourages and promotes the participation of citizens in social activities to improve citizens’ sense of social responsibility and the sense of accomplishment of citizenship self-realization to understand the psychological empowerment of cultural citizenship.

Therefore, this research will take the concepts of “cultural rights, cultural identity, and identity” as outlined in the definition of “cultural citizenship” and use them as a lens through which to interpret any findings. Combining political science and cultural heritage as the theoretical guidance of disciplines, exploratory research is conducted on the behavior intention and value perception of citizens participating in ICH handicraft safeguarding.

1.2. Research Object and Purpose

The object of this research is Jincang embroidery, a traditional technique of intangible cultural heritage in Quanzhou, China (it uses golden embroidery thread, which is shaped similar to allium). This embroidery technique belongs to the Fujian Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection List and is used primarily in puppet costumes and embroidered decorations in temples and halls. The technical characteristics of Jincang embroidery are the heightening skills of adding cotton wool and paper, as well as the three-dimensional embroidery skills of collage and splicing, and the strong visual impact rendered using gold and silver threads (Figure 4 and Figure 5). In Quanzhou, where worshiping ghosts and gods are admired, people use the lively and exaggerated visual effects of Jincang embroidery to convey the ultimate reverence for the gods. It can be said that Jincang embroidery in Quanzhou does not represent a pure hand embroidery technique. It also signifies a native attachment carried by the method and practice of faith in the spirit of appealing to the gods caused by risk and uncertainty.

Due to the decrease in folk temples and opera performances in Quanzhou, the demand for Jincang embroidery products has dropped sharply. At present, Jincang embroidery products in Quanzhou are mainly supplied to Southeast Asia and Taiwan. Quanzhou citizens’ contact with Jincang embroidery is also limited to public cultural activities organized by government departments and collections in local cultural centers. However, with the development of activities of intangible cultural heritage entering campuses and communities, Quanzhou Jincang embroidery skills gradually reappeared in the lives of local citizens.

As one of the administrative tasks of the government’s management nature, China’s intangible cultural heritage safeguarding has shifted from focusing on the “protection list” to “protection effectiveness.” Hence, conventional evaluation methods can be divided into two types: “first-party evaluation” (supervision and evaluation by the government’s cultural management department) and “second-party evaluation” (self-examination and evaluation by the inheritor of the heritage object). The neutrality, objectivity, professionalism, and system of the “third-party assessment” can provide more active and effective re-verification and supplementation of the results of the “first-party assessment” and “second-party assessment.” Furthermore, it can play an active role in safeguarding intangible cultural heritage, which pays more attention to “protection effectiveness.”

Therefore, this research uses the perspective of “third-party evaluation” required for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage handicrafts and uses intangible cultural heritage as a social public cultural resource to design evaluation indicators for handicraft learning activities involving citizens.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Citizen Cultural Heritage Education and Cultural Citizenship

The essence of heritage is a process of heritage construction [6]. In the process of heritage construction, authoritative discourse usually interprets heritage as a material entity that embodies the will of the elite, while non-authoritative discourses regard heritage construction as a cultural process related to identity, power, skills, locality, and practical experience [9]. These non-authoritative subjects include community residents, tourists, tourism companies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and other social groups or organizations. They all regard heritage as the focus of constructing their own identity and meaning. Therefore, emphasizing the cognition and identification of cultural citizenship will help the individual citizen’s subjectivity and inter-subjectivity to interact with one another. Citizens can better understand and use their artistic rights in social practice, thereby assuming corresponding cultural responsibilities and obligations.

The cultural concept of citizenship is intended to flow within and between various levels of culture [10], which gives citizens the necessary conditions and opportunities to participate in various cultural communities at the local, national, and global levels, forming multicultural citizenship [11]. Yang [12] analyzes the connotation of cultural citizenship, that is, the value of the times, and proposes that the cultivation of cultural citizenship and identity recognition should be constructed by the educational system, citizens themselves, and the non-educational social system. Li [13] proposes from the safeguarding practice of intangible cultural heritage Midu lanterns that limited government leadership, the implementation of a participatory ICH safeguarding development model, the enhancement of participation capacity building, and the cultivation of participation spokespersons are effective ways to increase public participation and cultural discourse power. Wang [14] emphasizes that contemporary cultural heritage protection actions should maintain or awaken people’s response to heritage to maintain a unique cultural identity and rejuvenate the heritage’s continued vitality. Wang also suggests that “continuity” will become an essential principle of heritage protection after “authenticity” and “integrity.” Li & Ma [15] conducted educational practice research on the logical relationship between “ICH safeguarding” and “intercultural education,” and used the study to propose that the intangible cultural heritage education path can help awaken and strengthen the cultural participation, identity, and social exchanges of the inheritors. This path can also contribute to ICH safeguarding and development to create endogenous power. After conducting an epistemological analysis of Mexico’s ICH safeguarding concept and measures, Zhang [16] proposes that the community-owned attributes of ICH mean that the inheritance of heritage will be more dependent on the consciousness and participation of the community; in other words, linking intellectuals’ understanding of cultural inheritance with normal people’s daily lives will help cultivate the cultural identity and consciousness of heritage groups.

In response to the evaluation needs of the development of cultural citizenship, Mercer [17] designed four sets of indicators to measure cultural dimensions at the local, national, and international level: (1) cultural vitality, cultural diversity, and cultural joy; (2) cultural accessibility, participation, and consumption (which look at the opportunities and obstacles for users trying to participate in culture actively); (3) culture, lifestyle, and identity (which focus on the degree to which cultural resources and capital are used to construct a specific lifestyle and identity); and (4) culture, ethics, governance, and behavior (which focus on the shaping of individual and collective behavior by cultural resources and capital). Mercer’s four dimensions of cultural citizenship are primarily used for cultural governance, and the application of these indicators constitutes the basis for cultural policy formulation. Simultaneously, the implicit assumption is that culture can be used as a capital resource for individuals or collectives and that culture has economic attributes.

Cultural citizenship is not meant to cut off its original artistic genes but to achieve empowerment of cultural minorities when they are in a socially attached position and to establish integrity spaces and diverse associations [18].

2.2. Social Capital and Citizen Participation

Robert D. Putnam (2015) defines social capital as “the private participation network of ordinary citizens, and the norms of reciprocity and trust embodied in this agreement.” Social capital is self-reinforcing and accumulative due to its use. A virtuous circle will produce social equilibrium and continuously form high cooperation, trust, reciprocity, citizen participation, and collective welfare. In contrast, non-public spiritual communities lacking these qualities are also self-reinforcing. American sociologist Alexandro Portes (1998) believes that social capital is not an asset but a kind of ability, obtaining scarce resources in a social network or social structure, a membership status. He also distinguished between positive social capital and negative social capital. Francis Fukuyama (2000) believes that social capital is an informal norm that helps two or more individuals cooperate with what can be explained by strength; trust, network, civil society, and other things related to social capital. Lochner & Kennedy [19] pointed out that the measurement indicators of community social capital include community social organizations, social support, sense of belonging, social network, informal interaction, and volunteer participation activity. The World Bank has made significant contributions to research on social capital measurement. A-SCAT [20] uses seven questions to measure structural social capital and 11 questions to measure cognitive, social capital. These 18 questions include organizational connections (and participation in associations is relatively close), collective action, participation in public affairs, social support, social cohesion, sense of belonging, trust, and reciprocity, etc.

The connotation of “participation” has its definition in various specific social practices. The “participation” in the theoretical interpretation focuses on the involvement of various stakeholders in the decision-making process of related affairs. It enhances their capabilities by changing their understanding so that citizens can bear their dues: responsibilities, use, and control of resources.

Empowerment is defined as people gaining control over their personal lives and communities [21]. It represents a new orientation in the development of social capital, emphasizing the cooperation between community members and professionals rather than treating professionals as authorities who guide or carry out work in the community from top to bottom. At the local level, empowerment is a natural construct linked to social capital. It focuses on the individual’s self-efficacy, self-confidence, competence, critical reflection, and how individuals rely on mutual respect, care, and participation. The ways of acquiring and exchanging resources relate to changes at the group, organization, and community level [22]. At the individual level, empowerment can predict the degree of residents’ participation, forming a mutually reinforcing virtuous circle between empowerment and residents’ involvement. Citizen participation constitutes the formal behavioral dimension of social capital.

Based on the documents mentioned above, this study takes citizens’ willingness to protect intangible cultural heritage by measuring cultural citizenship. Initial indicators include authenticity, social network, norms and trust, cultural identity, cultural identity, and community awareness.

3. Research Design

3.1. Research Process

The research design is divided into two phases. The first phase involves collecting qualitative data, including the inheritance subject (inheritor and teacher) of ICH handicraft and the ICH safeguarding subject (student). The second phase consists of collecting and analyzing quantitative data, which is carried out by using questionnaire surveys. The qualitative data analysis uses grounded theory methods, the data analysis of quantitative data uses SPSS for analysis, and the model verification analysis uses Amos. Thus, it can be said that this study uses a mixed research method to achieve comprehensive and authentic data collection (Figure 6).

3.2. Phase I: In-Depth Interview Method and Interview Design

An in-depth interview is a style of interview in which open-ended questions are used to better understand participants’ beliefs, attitudes, and motivations. The information gleaned from the participants involves how they see their world and how they interpret important events in their lives [23]. Overall, an in-depth interview aims to achieve two purposes: to clarify and refine the content of the basic information questionnaire and to focus on key events by more profoundly examining the specific process of the event, the accompanying emotional experience, and the related influencing factors.

To further clarify citizens’ value perception and cultural identity in the informal educational inheritance of ICH handicraft, this study divides the in-depth interview population into two groups. In the first group, from 23–24 November 2020, the research team members will organize the ICH handicraft inheritance workshop for college students as an organizer (participants: one inheritor, one assistant, nine students, three teachers) conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews during this period. Figure 7 shows the activity scene of the embroidery handicraft inheritance workshop and the Jincang embroidery works completed by the students. On 6 March 2021, the researcher participated in the embroidery inheritance workshop organized by the community university in the second group. Figure 8 shows the scene of the second group of members participating in the embroidery experience activities organized by the community. During this period, the researcher conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with other participants [Appendix A].

The content of the in-depth interview includes four dimensions and six interview questions. The researcher recorded the interview with the consent of the participants. In addition to in-depth interviews, the researchers also conducted informal interviews with participants in their daily lives to ensure an abundance of information. The first dimension pertains to the participants’ basic knowledge, including the participants’ experience before learning. The second dimension covers questions about skill learning, including the participants’ motivation and activity goals for learning embroidery handicraft, as well as questions about how the participants’ backgrounds have helped to form their opinions. The third dimension involves three questions related to key events. These questions are discussed in terms of three aspects—direct event description, indirect reflection opportunity description, and special moment recall—and they guide students to narrate important learning processes in as much detail as possible to collect rich learning and transformative learning experiences and approaches. The fourth dimension aims to summarize the factors that affect learners’ understanding and invites participants to add other important information that has not yet been discussed.

The in-depth interview data of the first phase were compiled using NVIVO software to form an evaluation index for the informal education and inheritance activities of ICH embroidery handicraft (the data used in this study are Q11–Q13).

3.3. Phase II: Questionnaire Survey Method and Design

According to the interview data of Phase I, this research establishes a conceptual framework, as shown in Figure 9. For the measurement of variables, such as social recognition, intangible heritage authenticity, cultural identity, and behavioral intentions, published scales, such as Heater [24], Zhu [25], and Houkamau [26] are cited. The sub-facets of each variable, operational definitions, number of items, and literature sources are shown in Table 1. Each item is measured using a Likert 5-point scale. To avoid the problem of common method variation caused by homology deviation, Podsakoff & Organ [27] and Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, and Podsakoff [28] were used in the questionnaire design and layout, using the interviewed information concealment method, item meaning concealment method, and the reverse problem item design method to reduce the error result caused by the common method variation.

A questionnaire survey is a data collection method that lends itself from statistical research into specific social and economic issues among large-scale populations. Researchers can design a series of questions and then give them to the interviewees to answer questionnaires to obtain sample data from a specific population related to the research topic. There are several advantages to questionnaire surveys: they are time-flexible; they are highly efficient; their sample sizes are not restricted; they are effective at ensuring anonymity; it is easy to obtain the consent of the subjects answering the survey; and they can help to form objective, easily quantifiable conclusions. Poor survey response rate and low efficiency are among the limitations of the questionnaire survey method. Therefore, because of the authenticity and representativeness of the questionnaire survey method, this study adopted a convenient sampling method for the pre-test of the questionnaire, and the design of the formal questionnaire was commissioned to a professional questionnaire survey platform (Credamo).

The hypotheses of this study are as follows:

Hypothesis 1 (H1):

The authenticity of ICH has a significant impact on perceived value.

Hypothesis 2 (H2):

Perceived value has a significant impact on the social recognition of ICH products.

Hypothesis 3 (H3):

The authenticity of ICH has a significant impact on cultural identity.

Hypothesis 4 (H4):

Cultural identity has a significant impact on perceived value.

Hypothesis 5 (H5):

Cultural identity has a significant impact on social identity.

The indicators of cultural identity related to this hypothesis come from individual identity and social identity. The Multi-Dimensional Model of Maori Identity and Cultural Engagement (MMM-ICE), developed by Houkamau et al. [29], includes six measurement dimensions: (1) group membership evaluation, (2) socio-political consciousness, (3) cultural efficacy and active identity engagement, (4) spirituality, (5) interdependent self-concept, and (6) authenticity beliefs. He [30] based this on the NATID scale created by Keillor et al., combining the “valuing national heritage” and “valuing cultural identity” dimensions of the scale into different cultural identity factors, and considered it to be related to the awareness of domestic products. Ethnocentrism has essential differences; the above dimensions of cultural identity are biased toward the group, organization, or ethnic level and belong to social identity.

Zhu (2018) used handmade paper as a case of public communication and proposed the identification model indicators of the new media communication path of handmade paper, including “use recognition, use habits, use behaviors, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use” as first-level indicators and “satisfaction and dependence” as secondary indicators. Heater (2004) constructed three dimensions for the citizenship model: (1) the geographic scale of citizenship; (2) the elements of citizenship, namely law and citizenship, politics and society, virtue and identity (or self-definition); (3) and education (including knowledge, attitude, and technology, and pertaining not only to formal school education but also education related to the degree of socialization and cultural adaptation).

The value of ICH is that it has the characteristics of “culture,” reflecting the way people think, communicate, and behave, as well as the traditional ideas and social mechanisms that lead to these [31]. Inheritance gives people a sense of ownership in some ways, making them think that inheritance belongs to their hometown, and this hometown is viewed as a region. People are proud of “owning” (not necessarily legally owning) this heritage, which strengthens the psychological identity between groups and gives heritage a symbolic “social value.” Heritage also creates a sense of pleasure in cultivating temperament and increasing the satisfaction of knowledge for foreign guests who come to visit. Moreover, heritage has “entertainment value” and “educational value.” Sun [32] divides heritage value into intrinsic existence value and external existence value and uses emotional value to connect the two. Thus, intrinsic value includes time value and other values, while external use value is divided into measurable value (economy) and immeasurable value (history, art, science, society).

The folk handicraft activities under the ICH list have noticeable commercial and self-consistent differences in function presupposition.

Commerciality means producers pay more attention to the economic exchange value of products and expect to realize it through commodity trading activities. Self-consistency means that the producer pays more attention to the spiritual satisfaction function of the product and hopes to achieve it through a cultural endowment in community activities. Throsby [33] stated that authenticity value “refers to the fact that the work is the authentic, original, and unique artwork which it is represented to be.” Yan & Chiou [34] define authenticity value based on customer value, which is determined by reliability, responsiveness, empathy, kind and courteous tone, real-time online presence, and efficiency.

In 2015, China began to implement the ICH inheritance group training and training program. The training plan brings together ICH inheritors with different skills and unique characteristics and conducts systematic training through university lectures. This training led to the homogenization and official vulgarization of the four traditional Chinese embroidery techniques and the dissolution of ICH’s authenticity and unique charm. The reasonable preservation and development of the authenticity of ICH require continuous reflection and adjustment in practice.

Based on the theoretical basis of the literature and the cultural heritage value of the scholars mentioned above, the content of the questionnaire and item arrangement selected in this study are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Questionnaire design.

Variable	Indicator	Number of Items	Source
Social Identity	Cognition	6	[25] (Zhu,2018)
	Familiarity	6	[35] (Xiao&Guo,2018)
	Dissemination	6	[2] (Liu,2006)
	Participation	6	[4] (Dahlgren &Alvares,2013)
Perceived Value	Cultural continuity	4	[25] (Zhu,2018)
	Educational value	4	[24] (Heater,2004)
	Aesthetic value	4	[33] (Throsby,2001)
	Public value	3	[26] (Houkamau,2010)
ICH’s Authenticity	Authenticity	3	[34] (Yan& Chiou,2020)
	Historic	3	[5] (Benmayor,2002)
Cultural Identity	Identity	5	[7] (Flores,1997)
	Sense of accomplishment	5	[3] (Putnam,2015)
	Sense of honor	5	[12] (Yang,2016)
	Social responsibility	5	[36] (Coleman,1998)
	Community connection	5	[37] (Dalton,2007)

Table 1. Questionnaire design.

Variable	Indicator	Number of Items	Source
Social Identity	Cognition	6	[25] (Zhu,2018)
	Familiarity	6	[35] (Xiao&Guo,2018)
	Dissemination	6	[2] (Liu,2006)
	Participation	6	[4] (Dahlgren &Alvares,2013)
Perceived Value	Cultural continuity	4	[25] (Zhu,2018)
	Educational value	4	[24] (Heater,2004)
	Aesthetic value	4	[33] (Throsby,2001)
	Public value	3	[26] (Houkamau,2010)
ICH’s Authenticity	Authenticity	3	[34] (Yan& Chiou,2020)
	Historic	3	[5] (Benmayor,2002)
Cultural Identity	Identity	5	[7] (Flores,1997)
	Sense of accomplishment	5	[3] (Putnam,2015)
	Sense of honor	5	[12] (Yang,2016)
	Social responsibility	5	[36] (Coleman,1998)
	Community connection	5	[37] (Dalton,2007)

3.4. Results and Analysis

3.4.1. Sample Characteristics

The date of the questionnaire survey is 17–18 March 2021, and the electronic questionnaire will be used for the questionnaire survey. Forty-six valid questionnaires were collected in the pre-test questionnaire; 360 formal questionnaires were collected in total, with 60 invalid samples and 346 valid samples. From the perspective of demographic information distribution, the occupational distribution of the surveyed population is relatively uniform. The age distribution of the sample number is between 18–40 years old, which is a wide range of ages, and the sample characteristics are well represented (

Table 2. Demographic distribution of the subjects tested in the questionnaire (n = 346).

	Percentage			Percentage
Gender	Male-189 Female-157	54.62% 45.37%	Education level	Postgraduate and above College and undergraduate High school Junior high school Primary school Other	10.40% 86.12% 1.44% 1.44% 0.57%
Age	Under 18 18–25 26~30 31~40 41~50 51~60 Above 60	0.57% 27.16% 43.93% 20.80% 4.33% 2.60% 0.57%	Occupation	Full-time student Production staff Marketing/Sales/Staff Designer Consultant/Consulting Teacher Other professionals	16.47% 13.58% 27.74% 14.16% 4.62% 9.24% 14.16%

). The initial item pool of the pre-test questionnaire is 76 items. To maximize the content validity of the scale and ensure the correctness and pertinence of the items, the questionnaire was statistically analyzed, and six items with weaker correlation were deleted. Finally, a formal scale containing 70 items was formed. The formal questionnaire questions are divided into four basic informational questions and 13 descriptive questions.

3.4.2. Exploratory Factor Analysis

Exploratory factor analysis was performed on 346 samples using SPSS 26.0. The statistical value of KMO was 0.912, and the significance of Bartlett’s sphere test was 0.000, which is suitable for factor analysis. In this study, principal component analysis was used to perform factor analysis with maximum variance rotation. Combined with relevant literature, the following item deletion criteria were adopted: (1) the degree of commonality is less than 0.2; (2) the maximum load of factors is less than 0.5; (3) it has a high cross load; that is, the factor load value of a specific item in two or more dimensions is higher than 0.4, and the difference is less than 0.2; (4) items that are improperly classified or cannot be explained [38]. According to the above deletion criteria, after seven times factor analyses, a formal scale of 13 items was finally obtained. It can be seen from

Table 3. Component matrix after rotation α.

Component
No	Items	1	2	3	4
Q6_1	Date of Cultural and Natural Heritage Day	0.800	0.056	0.070	0.086
Q6_4	Intangible Cultural Heritage WeChat official account	0.733	0.208	0.038	0.136
Q6_2	The location of the intangible cultural heritage museum in the city	0.730	0.094	0.088	0.090
Q6_3	Cultural experience activities organized by the intangible cultural heritage museum	0.729	0.036	0.143	0.154
Q7_5	Intangible cultural heritage + E-commerce	0.710	0.217	0.178	–0.148
Q8_3	Intangible cultural heritage training courses organized by communities and associations	0.704	0.129	–0.046	0.231
Q6_5	Chinese traditional culture/cultural heritage articles	0.691	0.061	0.243	0.075
Q8_2	Intangible heritage experience course organized by the inheritor’s studio	0.681	–0.071	0.291	0.012
Q7_1	Intangible cultural heritage + lectures (online, offline)	0.653	0.226	–0.150	0.233
Q8_4	Handicraft experience courses of commercial training institutions	0.645	–0.092	0.401	–0.076
Q7_8	Intangible cultural heritage + public publication	0.629	0.022	0.009	0.151
Q8_1	Weekend intangible cultural heritage experience	0.620	0.178	0.050	0.108
Q7_7	Intangible cultural heritage + live program	0.567	0.273	–0.015	0.150
Q8_5	Purchase intangible cultural heritage DIY experience package	0.567	0.142	0.124	–0.337
Q14_3	Traditional craftsmanship continues the historical continuity of local culture	0.150	0.765	0.102	0.050
Q17_3	The value of historical witness	0.047	0.738	0.050	0.112
Q9_3	The decorative art of embroidery	0.103	0.677	0.015	0.260
Q10_4	Inheritance of embroidery craftsmanship	0.125	0.627	0.330	0.090
Q14_10	Intangible cultural heritage is a cultural wealth shared by all people	0.218	0.553	0.415	–0.083
Q10_6	The seriousness of the decorative pattern	0.231	–0.003	0.733	0.140
Q10_2	The authenticity of embroidery skills	0.037	0.206	0.722	0.085
Q10_5	The history of embroidery culture	0.022	0.255	0.549	0.150
Q14_7	Close the interaction between myself, the community, and others	0.179	0.194	0.190	0.696
Q14_6	Connects the relationship between my daily life and traditional culture	0.193	0.126	0.396	0.637
Q14_5	Enlightened me to respect and think about the cultural life of myself and others	0.257	0.437	0.021	0.561

Extraction method: principal component analysis method. Rotation method: Caesar normalized maximum variance method. α. The rotation has converged after six iterations.

that the project factor loads are all above 0.5. There are four factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, the cumulative total variance accounted for 59.391%, and the extraction method is the principal component analysis.

According to the content and meaning of the items contained in each factor, the relevant literature and expert opinions are referred to, and the four factors that are extracted are named. Factor 1 includes six items; its content is the public’s understanding of intangible heritage information and the public’s willingness to participate in the intangible heritage craftsmanship course, named “Social Recognition.” Since factor 2 contains five items, the content is the evaluation of social participation activities of intangible cultural heritage, the assessment of the value of intangible cultural heritage embroidery, and the assessment of the functional significance of intangible cultural heritage. They are the value evaluation of experience, product, and functionality. Therefore, it is named “Perceived Value.” Factor 3 contains three items; its content evaluates the skills, culture, and aesthetics of intangible cultural heritage embroidery, thus called Intangible Cultural Heritage’s Authenticity (“ICH’s Authenticity”). Factor 4 is the evaluation of social participation activities of intangible cultural heritage. The content is the interaction and reflection between individuals and traditional culture, and individuals and communities, named “Cultural Identity.”

3.4.3. Reliability and Validity Test

The reliability coefficient of the whole scale is 0.862, and the reliability coefficient of the subscale is between 0.917 and 0.632, which is a relatively high level of reliability. It can be seen from

Table 4. CITI value, Cronbach’s α coefficient, and factor loading of the scale.

Factors	Item	CITC	Cronbach’s α Value When the Item was Deleted	Factor Loading
Social Recognition α = 0.917	Q6_1 Q6_4 Q6_2 Q6_3 Q8_3 Q7_8	0.755 0.716 0.691 0.700 0.666 0.564	0.906 0.908 0.909 0.908 0.910 0.914	0.800 0.733 0.730 0.729 0.704 0.629
Perceived Value α = 0.774	Q14_3 Q17_3 Q9_3 Q10_4 Q14_10	0.620 0.541 0.527 0.547 0.506	0.708 0.735 0.741 0.733 0.746	0.765 0.738 0.677 0.627 0.553
ICH’s Authenticity α = 0.632	Q10_6 Q10_2 Q10_5	0.473 0.461 0.407	0.495 0.518 0.580	0.733 0.722 0.549
Cultural Identity α = 0.676	Q14_7 Q14_6 Q14_5	0.461 0.486 0.521	0.619 0.586 0.537	0.696 0.637 0.561

that the corrected item-total correlation (CITC) of each subscale is greater than 0.5, and the Cronbach’s α value when the item is deleted is lower than the original value, indicating that the internal of the item has always been relatively good.

This study uses combined reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE) indicators in convergence validity. It can be seen from

Table 5. Reliability analysis of the scale.

Variable	Social Recognition	Perceived Value	ICH’s Authenticity	Cultural Identity
Social recognition	0.677	0.527	0.365	0.363
Perceived value		0.588	0.323	0.169
ICH’s authenticity			0.838	0.046
Cultural identity				0.915
CR	0.92	0.784	0.738	0.775
AVE	0.536	0.421	0.364	0.466

Note: The value on the diagonal is the root mean square of AVE.

that the CR value of each potential variable is above 0.7 (generally required to be above 0.6), signifying that the intrinsic quality of the scale is ideal. Moreover, AVE can directly show how much of the variance explained by the latent variables is due to measurement errors. The general judgment criterion is that AVE is greater than 0.5. The AVE of each dimension of the scale is greater than 0.5, implying that the measurement indicators can more effectively reflect the potential characteristics of their common factor constructs.

In this study, comparing AVE root mean square and correlation coefficient proposed by Fornell et al. [39] was used to analyze the discriminative validity of this scale. As shown in

Table 6. Path coefficient estimates of model variables.

Path	Estimate	S.E.	C.R.	P	Validation Results
Perceived value ←ICH’s authenticity	0.393	0.090	4.370	***	Support
Perceived value ← Cultural identity	0.239	0.094	2.543	0.011	Support
Social recognition ← Perceived value	0.723	0.141	5.137	***	Support

Note: ** p < 0.001.

, the root mean square of AVE is greater than the correlation coefficient between the factors, indicating that the scale has good discriminative validity.

3.5. Overall Model Structure Analysis

The fitted model for when the sample data is imported into Amos 24.0 is shown in Figure 10. The maximum likelihood method (maximum likelihood) was used to estimate the parameters of the study model. The values of the fitness indexes were as follows: CMIN/DF = 1.913 < 3, AGFI = 0.906, NFI = 0.896, RFI = 0.874, IFI = 0.948, TLI = 0.936, CFI = 0.947, these are all close to or greater than 0.9, RMSEA=0.051 < 0.08, indicating that the model fits well.

Figure 11 shows the overall model estimation value and items. It can be seen from Table 6 that the standardized path coefficient values of intangible heritage authenticity to perceived value, cultural identity to perceived value, and perceived value to social acceptance are respectively 0.393, 0.239, and 0.723. All of these are positive values, of which “ICH’s Authenticity” and “Perceived Value” reached a significant level of 0.001, the social value reached a considerable level of 0.05, and the related hypotheses were verified.

From the summary table of intermediary effect in

Table 7. Intermediary effect summary table.

95% Confidence Interval
Estimate		BC/PC P–Value	BC	PC
Indirect Effect
Cultural identity→Perceived value → Social recognition	0.173	0.071/0.122	–0.023~0.391	–0.060~0.365
ICH’S authenticity → Perceived value → Social recognition	0.284	0.001/.001	0.100~.613	0.100~0.613
Direct Effect
Cultural identity → Perceived value	0.239	0.093/0.122	–0.048~0.503	–0.071~0.489
ICH’S authenticity → Perceived value	0.393	0.001/0.001	0.190~0.750	0.179~0.707
Perceived value → Social recognition	0.723	0.002/0.001	0.378~1.066	0.407~1.102
Total Effect
Cultural identity → Perceived value	0.239	0.093/0.122	–0.048~0.503	–0.071~0.489
Cultural identity → Social recognition	0.173	0.071/0.122	–0.023~0.391	–0.060~0.365
ICH’S authenticity → Perceived value	0.393	0.001/0.001	0.190~0.750	0.179~0.707
ICH’S authenticity → Social recognition	0.284	0.001/0.001	0.100~0.613	0.100~0.613
Perceived value → Social recognition	0.723	0.002/0.001	0.378~1.066	0.407~1.102

BC: Bias-corrected percentile method. PC: Percentile method.

:

• The value of the indirect effect is 0.284. The 95% confidence interval of bias-corrected and percentile does not contain 0. The p value is less than 0.05, indicating that the perceived value does play a significant intermediary role in the relationship between ICH’S authenticity and social recognition.
• The direct effect value of “ICH’S authenticity → Perceived value” is 0.393. The 95% confidence interval of bias-corrected and percentile does not contain 0, and the p value is less than 0.05, so the direct effect is significant.
• The direct effect value of “Perceived value → Social recognition” is 0.723. The 95% confidence interval of bias-corrected and percentile does not contain 0, and the p value is less than 0.05, so the direct effect is significant.
• The total effect value of “ICH’S authenticity → Perceived value” is 0.393. The 95% confidence interval of bias-corrected and percentile does not contain 0, and the p value is less than 0.05, so the direct effect is significant.
• The total effect value of “ICH’S authenticity → Social recognition” is 0.284. The 95% confidence interval of bias-corrected and percentile does not contain 0, and the p value is less than 0.05, so the direct effect is significant.
• The total effect value of “Perceived value → Social recognition” is 0.723. The 95% confidence interval of bias-corrected and percentile does not contain 0, and the p value is less than 0.05, so the direct effect is significant.

The above description shows that perceived value does play a significant intermediary role in the relationship between ICH’S authenticity and social recognition.

4. Research Result and Discussion

4.1. The Rationality of the Theoretical Model Is Supported

The social identity of intangible heritage value is not static forever. In a dynamic environment, the relationship between the authenticity of intangible heritage and social identity is one where they influence one other. This research takes the authenticity of intangible cultural heritage value as the research lens, constructs a conceptual model of the value perception and cultural identity of intangible cultural heritage social identity, and hopes to explore the impact of intangible cultural heritage authenticity variables (perceived value, cultural identity) on social identity. We can further understand the direction of intangible cultural heritage as a public cultural resource in a changing environment.

The analysis results of the structural equation model show that the scale for measuring various variables has positive validity and reliability, and the fitness index of the conceptual model also supports the rationality of the theoretical model of this study. The relationship between the variables, except that cultural identity has no significant effect on perceived value, reveals that ICH’S authenticity has a positive impact on perceived value; ICH’S authenticity has a positive effect on social recognition, and perceived value has a positive effect on social recognition. It also proved that perceived value has an intermediary effect between ICH’S authenticity and social recognition.

4.2. Reflections on the Sustainable Development of Intangible Cultural Heritage

Comparing the values obtained from Q9, Q10, and Q11 (Figure 12), the results show (

Table 8. Evaluation of authenticity value of ICH embroidery.

Item 1–6	Q9	Q10	Q11
	Extract	Extract	Extract
Diversity of Chinese culture	0.532	0.487	0.606
The authenticity of embroidery craftsmanship	0.499	0.502	0.496
The decorative arts of embroidery	0.667	0.471	0.571
Inheritance of embroidery skills	0.503	0.446	0.577
The history of embroidery culture	0.431	0.431	0.624
The seriousness of the decorative pattern	0.657	0.631	0.731

Extraction method: principal component analysis method. Note: This data are obtained from SPSS’s first-factor analysis of initial data.

):

• Embroidery with strong authenticity (Item 9) has the weakest score of 0.499 on the “authenticity of embroidery technique” and the strongest score of 0.657 on the “decorative art of embroidery.” It is assumed that the embroidery with strong authenticity of ICH has weak authenticity (authenticity) and strong decoration (social recognition), which supports Hypothesis H1.
• Embroidery with medium authenticity (Item 10) has the weakest score (0.431) on the “historically of embroidery culture” scale and the strongest score (0.631) on the “seriousness of decorative patterns” scale. The embroidery with medium authenticity of ICH is assumed to score low on cultural history (perceived value) and score high on pattern seriousness (social recognition), supporting Hypothesis H2.
• Embroidery with weak authenticity (Item Q11) has the weakest score of 0.496 on the “authenticity of embroidery skills” and the strongest score of 0.731 on the “seriousness of decorative patterns.” It is assumed that the embroidery with the weakest authenticity of ICH has weak authenticity (authenticity) and strong pattern seriousness (social recognition), which supports Hypothesis H1.

4.3. Research Conclusion

UNESCO created the “Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity,” an international honor aimed at drawing the attention of governments, educational institutions, non-governmental organizations, and local communities to intangible cultural heritage to promote its scientific protection. However, China’s current practice of protecting intangible heritage handicrafts is still one of the working principles led by the government. These top-down “protection of guest position” measures did not solve the fundamental problem of “subject inheritance.” In protecting intangible cultural heritage, the focus is also on protecting personal or individual knowledge or skills. Regarding the significance of culture to the community, the importance, necessity, and possibility of relying on the power of the people in the community to protect culture has not received enough attention. Modern youth’s intangible cultural heritage transmission activities are carried out primarily through school education. However, this type of transmission method is limited because it is straightforward to break away from the original space of intangible cultural heritage inheritance and be abstracted as a type of symbol and replaced with a new scene. It may cause some “distortion” and impact the effect of inheritance. Simultaneously, non-specialized intangible cultural heritage school education has strong openness, is often universal, and the inheritance is easy to “taste” without practical results.

The management and protection of culture are inseparable from the active participation and creation of people. An actor who does not recognize a specific right can only passively participate in a particular activity at best; the generation of a specific right also requires a specific situation of society.

The protection of intangible cultural heritage is not to establish a kind of specimen protection isolated from other groups. Instead, based on clarifying their cultural identity, the inheritance group realizes traditional rejuvenation through self-management. Under the conditions of equality and diversity, they are given full space for development to create an inheritance and development heritage solution. Only when people have the subjective willingness to inherit and the cultural psychology of identity can it be possible to realize the current transformation of cultural heritage. “Participation” is not just “appearing” in a specific cultural event in the traditional sense, or viewing culture and art, and making cultural and artistic creations. Its deeper meaning is “empowerment, autonomy, and democracy.”

The key to the sustainable development of traditional skills lies in the cultivation of talents. The training of handicraft talents cannot be separated from family education and social education. Only when social education forms a high-level, middle-level, and low-level talent base, coupled with the assistance of family education, can the handicraft industry have a considerable talent base. Furthermore, only with an appropriate talent base can future masters of arts, crafts, and representative inheritors be born. Talent training is related to the development trend of the entire industry. It is also related to whether many important intangible cultural heritages can be truly protected and passed on. Relying on single-family education can no longer independently shoulder all the training successors of traditional skills. Establishing a diversified social education mechanism is the future direction of development, and by selecting a sound professional intangible heritage protection system, the government and communities need to make corresponding adjustments to their roles and functions, which will help achieve sustainable intangible heritage cultural education take root (see Figure 13).

4.4. Discussion

Cultural citizenship from the perspective of participatory governance focuses on promoting people’s participation in local cultural governance, including participation in cultural life and creation, cultural public policy decision-making processes, and public governance. It pays attention to the ways or channels of participation.

This study currently only discusses the type of informal educational protection of intangible cultural heritage. The social capital part of cultural heritage protection has not been addressed in-depth, and future research can be added to the empirical study of local cultural knowledge in community education.

The contribution of the research lies in the evaluation of the effects of citizen participation in the ICH cultural experience and the third-party perspective of evaluation indicators for ICH protection. Through hybrid research methods, executives of administrative duties can listen to citizens’ voices and see more comprehensive and essential needs. The value recognition model of informal education inheritance of intangible cultural heritage proposed in this research can be applied to the performance evaluation of other manual skills activities (paper-cutting art, bamboo weaving crafts, etc.). Furthermore, the evaluation standard can be used to evaluate the teaching effect of other cultural education courses and can be used to find the direction of the problem.

Future research can be conducted by focusing on the following three aspects:

• The research field and sample size can be expanded to better reduce the research errors caused by regional differences and sample size so that the research conclusions have broader applicability.
• In the future, we can expand the scope of research, study the role of intangible cultural heritage in algorithmic content distribution and social communication, find the weight indicators in the algorithm model, and make data the standard for intangible cultural heritage protection and communication.
• Due to the limitation of the model, it was not possible to conduct a correlation study on the influence of demographic variables and citizen identification. Future research can study the effects of demographic variables, such as gender, occupation, age, educational background, and cultural citizenship identity, to better understand the role of the public in cultural citizenship identity recognition.

Intangible cultural heritage is the common cultural heritage and a fundamental right enjoyed by citizens. We must promote and strengthen intangible cultural heritage and help citizens enjoy the right of intangible cultural education, which is consistent with the goals of the United Nations SDG 4.7 (“Ensure all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development” [40]).