Learning Through the Arts

This is damn exciting.

Maybe a little dry, but damn exciting, nonetheless.

Another issue that is crucial to consider in arts education research is that of socioeconomic status. The report by Catterall, Chapleau and Iwanaga (1999b), cited in the Champions of Change initiative of the U.S. Secretary of Education, addressed this issue. The researchers analysed differences in achievement and attitude for 25,000 students over a ten-year period, treating students who were disadvantaged in terms of socioeconomic status as a separate group. For all students, but particularly for those in the low SES group, academic performance, attitudes and behaviour were positively correlated with long-term involvement in the arts. For example, for low SES students, 43.8% of students highly involved in the arts scored in the top 2 quartiles in reading, compared to 28.6% for students with little or no arts engagement. When the entire student sample was considered, 70.9% of high arts students scored in the top 2 quartiles in reading, compared to 46.3% of the low arts students. Catterall et al. also found that the probability of being highly involved in the arts was twice as great for economically advantaged students.