Research Links to The Arts and Education/Learning

By Dr. Sue Snyder

This webography provides some sites with research links to the arts and education/learning. They will surely lead to others, and they are only the tip of the iceberg. Hope this helps to provide a context for developing academic and action research.

In addition to the two Jensen books, Teaching with the Brain in Mind and Arts with the Brain in Mind, these web sites will give you an overview of the available "stuff" out there. As with anything, it ranges from magazine articles constructed for general consumption, to information for practitioners, to rigorous academic studies.

Start with the Arts Education Partnership materials. This organization is committed to partnerships between artists (as opposed to arts educators) and schools, so it is biased in that direction. It needs to be adapted to also focus on trained arts educators and sequential arts instruction over time, with rigorous concept and skill objectives.

• Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning (PDF) compiles results of seven major studies.
• Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development is their most recent, and provides not only synopses of studies, but overviews in each of the arts and across the arts.
• Envisioning Arts Assessment (PDF) provides useful insight for designing research studies.
• Gaining the Arts Advantage (PDF) was a political piece, but might provide some useful information. It has some descriptive components, and some research findings. There are documents like this from many organizations in New York City, including the Center for Arts Education, and from not-for-profit organizations across the country.
• "Eloquent Evidence" is a little old, but is a very good promotional piece that might open some doors initially.

Project Zero's project REAP (Reviewing Education and the Arts Project) outlines an article and argument that caused a great row last year, and was played out on NPR and in other fairly public forums. It should be particularly instructive regarding the dangers of what we are proposing. It ended up with high-profile discussions such as "Does Studying the Arts Enhance Academic Achievement? in Education Week.

The Learning Through the Arts program is being implemented throughout Canada. There is an assessment page, outlining a large-scale assessment that is on-going.

What Kids Can Do gives a practical look at the arts in response to 9-11.

The Education Week article "Study Identifies Benefits Of Arts Curriculum" will lead you to Transforming Education Through the Arts Challenge (PDF). This is another example of a large-scale program, and useful because of the documentation of their challenges and struggles.

The Connecticut State Department of Education's "The Arts, A Guide to K-12 Program Development," Chapter 1 (Vision and Philosophy) and Chapter 3 (on components of effective arts programs) should be particularly useful. State Arts Consultant Scott Shuler is a passionate advocate of the arts for their own sake, and strong arts programs because they are inherently essential for healthy, whole human beings.

New York State's arts standards clearly are not being met by many or most of the city's schools.