What Research Says -- and Proves -- about Arts Education
The arts are much more than just fun "extra" activities for kids. Participation in the arts opens up children's worlds and minds, and offers them the skills they need for a bright future.
The arts teach kids to be more tolerant and open; allow kids to express themselves creatively; promote individuality, bolster self-confidence, and improve overall academic performance; can help troubled youth, providing an alternative to delinquent behavior and truancy while providing an improved attitude towards school.
Information about arts education:
Venezuela's "El Sistema" - comprehensive music education that starts at an early age. Click here for the recent "60 Minutes" story about the prgoram.
Revitalizing
Arts Education Through Community-Wide Coordination The Wallace Foundation
(June 2008)
www.wallacefoundation.org/NR/rdonlyres/B49E3B29-04F2-4EE3-BFFC-9C76D442F5A0/0/RevitalizingArtsEducation.pdf
This report found that many factors, including state and local budget
cuts and the emphasis of the No Child Left Behind Act on reading and math,
have sharply reduced the number of arts teaching positions as well as
school time available for arts courses. The report examined how initiatives
in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles County, New York City, and Alameda
County in California pooled resources and coordinated activities to make
it possible for more children to benefit from arts learning.
Research Brief: How
to Cultivate Demand for the Arts (June 2008)
By: Laura Zakaras, Julia F. Lowell
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9344/
This research brief summarizes a study about what it means to cultivate
demand for the arts, why it is important to do so, the role of arts learning
in this effort, and arts and education policy changes needed to build
future arts audiences.
Highlights of Arts Education Research (from Americans for the Arts)
§ The following research studies show all sorts of benefits when students participate in quality arts education programs.
1. Involvement
in the Arts and Success in Secondary Schools by Dr. James Catterall,
American for the Arts monograph, Volume 1, Number 9, 1999.
2. Involvement in the Arts and Human Development: General Involvement
and Intensive Involvement in Music and Theatre Arts by Dr. James Catterall,
Richard Chapleau, and John Iwanaga, The Imagination Project, UCLA Graduate
School of Education and Information Studies, September, 1998.
3. The College Board Profile of SAT and Achievement Test Takers, 1995.
4. The Schooled Mind: Do the Arts Make a Difference? An Empirical Evaluation
of the Hamilton/Fairfield SPECTRA+ program. 1992-93, by Dr. Richard I.
Luftig, 1994.
5. Chapter I Developer/demonstration Program: Learning to Read Through
the Arts, 1992-93: Office of Educational Research, New York City Board
of Education 1993, 1981, 1978.
§ Current research on brain development also shows that early experiences in the arts positively affects the cognitive development of children:
1. Young Children and the Arts: Making Creative Connections. A Report of the Task Force on Children's Learning and the Arts: Birth to Age Eight. 1998.
§ There is also evidence that arts education programs improve student attendance, increase cultural understanding, and increased creative thinking and problem solving skills:
1. Different Ways of Knowing: 1991-94 National Longitudinal Study Final
Report by James Catterall, 1995.
2. Effect of a Dance Program on the Creativity of Preschool Handicapped
Children by Danielle Jay, 1991.
§ Imaginative Actuality, Learning in the Arts During Non School Hours by Shirley Brice Heath with Adelma Roach of Stanford University and The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1998, found that arts education can help level the playing field for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, improve student performance, and improve the personal lives of youth at risk. In Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning, 1999.
§ For information on the arts as a way to build workforce skills for the 21st Century, see the November 1997 issue of Educational Leadership, which includes an insert by the Getty Institute for the Arts entitled Arts Education for Life and Work.
§ The following publications included specific references to studies that show the positive effects of arts education for students:
1. Champion
of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning, 1999, prepared by the
Arts Education Partnership and the President's Committee on the Arts and
the Humanities, edited by Edward B. Fiske. This study examines arts education
programs to determine why and how young people are changed by arts experiences.
2. Gaining the Arts Advantage: Lessons
from School districts that Value Arts Education, March 1999. The Wyoming
and the Hamilton, Ohio School Districts are featured in this report about
how community arts center, communities at large, and school districts
can partner to sustain quality arts education programs.
3. Eloquent Evidence:
Arts at the Core of Learning, 1995, President's Committee on the Arts
and the Humanities. Includes annotations that show how arts education
programs improve student academic performance, fosters creativity, student
engagement and persistence, and student self-esteem.
4. School, Communities, and the Arts: A Research Compendium developed
by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Morrison Institute for
Public Policy. Includes several research studies published since 1985
on the value of arts education.
5. Why
the Arts Matter in Education: or Just What Do Children Learn When They
Create an Opera?
Study of school-based elementary opera program. Found that students in
the opera setting participate more substantively in group interactions
than students in alternative settings. This collaborative work leads to
more effective problem solving. Uses both qualitative and quantitative
data. By Dennie Palmer Wolf (In Champions of Change, the Arts Education
Partnership and the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities,
1999).
For more information about the importance of arts education:
Ten Lessons the Arts Teach
Dr. Elliot Eisner,
Stanford University Learning and the Arts: Crossing Boundaries
Gaining the Arts Advantage:
Lessons from School Districts that Value Arts Education
http://www.pcah.gov/gaa/index.html
Learning Partnerships:
Improving Learning in Schools with Arts Partners in the Community
http://aep-arts.org/LP/LPindex.html