research
Topic: Arts Education
Arts education is a vast, diverse, and complex field. From disciplines to practitioners to populations served, arts education varies in content and context. Learning in music, dance, theater, and the visual arts are beneficial to all members of American society—young children, youth, adults, and the elderly. Schools and community-based arts organizations are major providers of formalized arts education instruction and programming.
Creating access, building arts participation, and drawing causal links between arts education and academic achievement continue to dominate the field of arts education research. A great deal of arts education research is focused on the K–12 learning environment. However, there is a growing trend among researchers to study arts learning in other environments. This, coupled with research targeting special populations—at-risk youth, the incarcerated, the disabled—is changing the landscape of arts education research.
The sustainability and success of arts education programming is due in large part to a shared commitment among schools, cultural institutions, businesses, and other community-based organizations. Well informed and executed research benefits the field of arts education through improved practice, effective tools for advocacy, and increased appreciation for arts education.
