In Thursday’s (3/29) Miller-McCune, Tom Jacobs reports, “Students from the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder tend to do less well in school than those from more upscale families. But newly published research identifies one sub-group of these youngsters who tend to exceed expectations: those who participate heavily in the arts. ‘At-risk teenagers or young adults with a history of intensive arts experiences show achievement levels closer to, and in some cases exceeding, the levels shown by the general population studied,’ a team of scholars writes in a new National Endowment for the Arts Research Report. ‘These findings suggest that in-school or extracurricular programs offering deep arts involvement may help to narrow the gap in achievement levels among youth.’ … The primary focus of the report, titled ‘The Arts and Achievement in At-Risk Youth,’ is on teenagers and young adults in the bottom 25 percent of the socioeconomic scale (as measured by family income, parental employment and the parents’ level of education). For that group, the authors write, there is a remarkably strong association between participation in the arts and a wide variety of positive outcomes. … The researchers, led by UCLA education policy analyst James Catterall, caution that this data does not establish cause and effect. … On the other hand, it’s also possible that engagement with the arts provides motivation or stimulation that has an impact far beyond the studio or practice room.”
Posted March 30, 2012
