Research
Theatre Counts – How Theatre Education Transforms Students’ Lives
People have long recognized the benefits of theatre education for academic outcomes in both theatre and other subjects, but did you know about the benefits it has for learners’ identity development, peer relations and self-awareness? This new special report from the Arts Education Partnership explores the impacts of theatre education on students and their development, as well as outcomes for educators as they strive to create empowering learning environments.
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Investigating Causal Effects of Arts Education Experiences
The report encourages policymakers to be mindful and considerate of these multifaceted educational benefits when assessing the opportunity costs that come with decisions pertaining to the provision of the arts in schools.
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Engaging the Arts Across the Juvenile Justice System
This Special Report explores research and programs that employ the arts along the juvenile justice continuum: in prevention, intervention, transition and healing.
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Visual Arts Matter
Visual arts can be a powerful discipline to support success throughout a student’s education, both within and outside of school settings. We experience visual arts each day, whether through our own creativity or everyday objects, such as the design of a cereal box or logo of a favorite sports team. For students, engaging with visual arts might take place during an art class, through a trip to an art museum or by participating in an arts-integrated English class. As students learn to create, respond and connect to their surroundings, experiences with visual arts help them to gain skills that positively impact their school experience.
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A Population-Level Analysis of Associations Between School Music Participation and Academic Achievement
This large-scale study identified evidence of positive relationships between school music participation and high school exam scores in English, mathematics, and science using population-level educational records for over 110,000 students in British Columbia, Canada. Participation in school music (especially instrumental music) was related to higher exam scores, and students with higher levels of school music engagement had higher exam scores.
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The Arts and Dropout Prevention: The Power of Art to Engage
Arts education is associated with lower dropout rates, as well as better academic outcomes. Studying the arts promotes academic selfefficacy and school engagement (predictors of persistence to graduation), and it enhances socioemotional skills valued in social relationships, the workplace, and education settings. As research continues to clarify those connections, and dropout prevention strategies are consciously integrated into arts education, arts education should be considered more intentionally as a dropout prevention strategy.
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Arts-Based Programs and Arts Therapies for At-Risk, Justice-Involved, and Traumatized Youths
The study found that, among children and teenagers from socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds, those with high levels of arts engagement showed more positive outcomes on indicators such as school grades, test scores, and high-school graduation rates, compared with youths with low levels of arts engagement.
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Review of the Literature: Impact of Music on Children with Special Needs
Art is beneficial not only to those who receive it but also to those who engage in its creation. This sets the context for looking at the arts as therapy in multiple contexts; there is a long history of art therapy that has existed and evolved for centuries in a variety of formats. There is a need to explore art as therapy for different populations, including its impact on students with special needs. This paper examines the research literature on music and students with special needs. Information was gathered from academic library searches of peer-reviewed articles using online resources.
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Effect of a Performing Arts Program on the Oral Language Skills of Young English Learners
This study contributes to the growing body of literature on effective teaching strategies for bolstering the oral English skills of young English language learners. It examines the effectiveness of performing arts activities that pair language and vocabulary with movement, gesture, and expression, drawing on grounded cognition literature and social theories of language acquisition to explain how such activities contribute to language development.
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“It Just Made Me Want to Do Better for Myself”: Performing Arts Education and Academic Performance for African American Male High School Students
A wide body of research has examined the relationship between arts engagement and academic performance for the general population of students in U.S. schools. To date, few studies have examined the effects of arts-based learning experiences on African American males’ academic performance. To address this gap in the literature, this case study, featured in the International Journal of Education & the Arts, uses interviews and post-graduation outcomes to explore the effects of school-based performing arts engagement on academic performance among African American male high school students. Findings from this project indicate that immersion in school-based performing arts learning experiences strengthens academic skills development, improves overall school performance, and enhances post-school outcomes for African American male high school students. These findings suggest that bolstering arts-based school curricula and increasing access to performing arts learning experiences may improve school outcomes for African American males who attend U.S. public schools.
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