Arts Education in Schools: Impact on Learning and Development

Introduction: The Marginalization of Arts in Schools

School leaders and policymakers pay little attention to the arts, despite widespread experience showing that allowing young people to participate in arts and culture can tremendously influence their development. The core problem is that very few people bother to research and record the far-reaching effects arts and culture can have on students. Instead, schools, researchers, and policymakers spend the majority of their time focusing on what is easily and commonly measured: reading and math success. This has led arts proponents to try to establish a connection between arts participation and higher reading and math grades — a claim that still lacks robust scholarly and scientific evidence. For other advocates of the arts, there is no need and no practical way to measure the benefits at all (Greene et al., 2014).

In recent years, most attention in education has shifted toward making numeracy and literacy top priorities, with the aim of creating employment opportunities for students and fostering a knowledge economy. With growing concern that more creative subjects are being increasingly sidelined as extracurricular additions — domains in which middle-class participation dominates — arts associations have begun preparing their defenses. Against this backdrop, understanding what arts education genuinely offers students becomes both urgent and necessary.

Why Arts Matter for Child Development

Art offers an exciting way to document growth. A child's artistic skills improve in much the same way that reading and writing skills improve with time. It is the shared responsibility of teachers and parents to ensure that children are exposed to a wide variety of relevant materials, enabling them to create art. When different materials are made available, children have the opportunity to choose which to use and how to use them. When that exposure is absent, however, they lose the chance to make those choices altogether.

The creation of art is one of the most meaningful ways children exercise independent decision-making and problem-solving. Every step requires a decision: which color to use, how to draw a line, what size of image to create. A child's sense of ownership over the finished object grows with each choice made. Art education nurtures and develops children's imagination, helping them give their abstract ideas a visual form. Children who struggle with other schoolwork may find it easier to express themselves through art, which can serve as a channel for latent talents that other academic formats do not reveal. Art allows individuals to communicate feelings, ideas, and even solutions to problems in ways that go beyond conventional written or verbal expression.

Research Evidence on Arts and Learning Outcomes

The results of a 10-year national study conducted by Shirley Brice Heath of Stanford University found that young people who participated in effective non-school arts programs in communities with limited resources, compared with a national sample of students, were:

• About 8 times more likely to receive an award for community service
• About 4 times more likely to receive an academic award, such as being placed on an honor roll
• About 3 times more likely to receive an award for school attendance
• About 4 times more likely to participate in a school science fair
• More likely to record higher SAT scores for college admission if they had actively participated in after-school arts classes for more than four years

These findings suggest that arts participation correlates with a broad range of positive academic and civic outcomes, even when students are not receiving arts instruction within a formal school setting. Studies examining arts activities in family and school contexts similarly report consistent positive effects on students' learning abilities and broader developmental outcomes, though most of these studies have methodological limitations that prevent them from serving as the basis for definitive recommendations (Greene et al., 2014).

Conclusion: The Case for Restoring Arts in Schools

It is common to see school program funders treat both performing and visual arts as mere frivolities — programs to be included in the curriculum only when extra funds are available, and the very first to be cut whenever any crisis emerges. Yet families can make provisions for visual and performing arts as a way of creating a more balanced environment for their children's growth. According to the studies reviewed, these art activities have consistent positive effects on students' learning abilities and a range of broader developmental outcomes.

Though the body of research is not without its weaknesses, the accumulated evidence points to a real and meaningful role for arts in education. The challenge for researchers, advocates, and policymakers is to invest in higher-quality studies that can confirm and build upon these preliminary findings, rather than dismissing the arts simply because they resist easy measurement. The benefits of arts education — in creativity, expression, decision-making, and cognitive development — are too significant to be left out of the conversation about what schools owe their students.

References

Greene, J. P., Kisida, B., Bogulski, C. A., Kraybill, A., Hitt, C., & Bowen, D. H. (2014, December 2). Arts education matters: We know, we measured it. Education Week.

Hudziak, J., Albaugh, M., Ducharme, S., Karama, S., Spottswood, M., Crehan, E., & Botteron, K. (2014). Cortical thickness maturation and duration of music training: Health-promoting activities shape brain development. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 53(11), 1153–1161.

Johnson, C., & Memmott, J. (2006). Examination of relationships between participation in school music programs of differing quality and standardized test results. Journal of Research in Music Education, 54(4), 293–307.