Digging into Survey Data for the American Association for State and Local History

Written By Katie Chandler

Client: American Association for State and Local History | Location: Nashville, TN

 
 

We partnered with the American Association for State and Local History to analyze data from their survey of history practitioners about the state of the workforce.

OVERVIEW

In 2025, through its Public History Research Lab, the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) launched the first national effort to systematically understand who works in the history field, how they’re compensated, and how they feel about their work. The survey aimed to establish a critical baseline for understanding the current state of the history field that could spark conversations and action leading to meaningful changes in workforce conditions. 

While AASLH designed and launched the survey, Kera Collective stepped in to provide our expertise in quantitative analysis and clear language reporting.  

APPROACH

Kera Collective analyzed nearly 3,700 responses from the National Survey of History Practitioners using descriptive and inferential statistics, allowing us to clearly communicate results (e.g., percent of respondents by age) and surface relationships among variables (e.g., is there a relationship between gender and perceptions of workplace culture).

CLIENT TAKEAWAYS

Overall, the data revealed a workforce that is deeply committed to its mission and motivated by the meaning of its work—but one that is also strained by low compensation, inequitable workplace experiences, limited advancement opportunities, and growing burnout. These tensions pose serious risks to equity, sustainability, and long-term capacity in the history field. 

For example, we found that the history field workforce is predominantly women, but women are underrepresented in leadership roles and experience pay disparity. These two factors also align with women’s top reasons for considering leaving the history field–low pay and lack of opportunities for growth and advancement. We also found that history workers are passionate and find deep meaning in their work, but at the same time, they feel worried and frustrated about their work and the field. For example, 90 percent of practitioners agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “I believe what I do here is meaningful,” but many also felt “worried” and “frustrated” about working for a history organization.

AASLH planned to launch a series of online and in-person opportunities for members to engage with the data, ask questions, and think about action steps for the field over the course of 2026.

Katie Chandler

Katie brings a decade of experience in market research and evaluation to her position as Senior Researcher at Kera Collective.

Katie’s love of anthropology, history, and applied research gives her a unique balance of curiosity about human thought and behavior and practicality to translate insights into meaningful actions. 

Katie enjoys using mixed methods to tease out the complexity and nuance in audiences’ experiences with museums and other informal learning organizations. She particularly enjoys working on projects that explore people’s relationship with the past and with the natural world.

She has published articles in several leading museum publications and frequently attends and presents at professional conferences like the American Association for State and Local History’s annual conference.  She currently serves as a reviewer for the Journal of Museum Education.

Outside the (home) office, Katie enjoys running and exploring Richmond’s many parks with her family and her dog.

Katie’s favorite museum at the moment is the Science Museum of Virginia.

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Guiding Future Professional Development at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino