Hands, from Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam,” at Italianrenaissance.org

In Createquity’s view, a healthy arts ecosystem maximizes the arts’ capacity to improve the lives of human beings in concrete and meaningful ways. As such, we have sought to better understand the various means by which one measures such improvements, the current state of research across areas of impact, and where there’s room to grow.

Why We Care

Since the evidence base for the benefits of the arts is continually developing and evolving, our investigations in this area have been fairly expansive. We began by grounding our work in the concept of wellbeing – an emerging, interdisciplinary field of study in the social sciences centering on a holistic definition of individual and societal health – to look at the impact of the arts across multiple dimensions of human life. We wanted to better understand how other sectors define and measure wellbeing and quality of life, and how arts and culture might fit into these existing frameworks. This foundational investigation led to a subsequent inquiry into the following questions:

• What are particular claims to the benefits of arts participation?
• Does the majority of available evidence support each claim?
• How strong is the quality of evidence?

What We Know

Grounding our research in the concept of wellbeing helped to shape our definition of meaningful benefits as a result of arts participation. We learned that although most wellbeing frameworks do not explicitly include arts and culture, some do. The one most closely matching Createquity’s worldview is the capability approach originally proposed by economist Amartya Sen, which frames wellbeing in the context of human beings’ freedom to make choices about how to live their lives. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum’s elaboration of the capability approach embraces the arts’ influence on overall wellbeing both directly and indirectly via the capabilities of “senses, imagination, and thought” and “play,”  which may include active arts participation and creation, as well as observation, reflection, absorption and enjoyment of arts experiences.

Our subsequent review of research into arts and wellbeing – focusing on the benefits of the arts on a range of different wellbeing impact areas – fits into four broad areas of impact: physical and mental health, education and personal development, economic vitality, and social cohesion. Following is a list of benefits claimed for arts participation across these areas, categorized based on the strength of the evidence backing those claims.

We are highly confident that:

• Participatory arts activities help to maintain the health and quality of life of older adults.  There is evidence that singing improves mental health and subjective wellbeing; taking dance classes bolsters cognition and motor skills; dancing and playing a musical instrument reduce the risk of dementia; and visual arts generate increases in self-esteem, psychological health, and social engagement.
• Arts therapies contribute to positive clinical outcomes, such as reduction in anxiety, stress, and pain for patients. Music interventions tend to dominate studies in this area, mostly characterized by passive forms of participation (e.g., listening to music).
• Arts participation in early childhood promotes social and emotional development. For example, teachers report fewer instances of shy, aggressive, and anxious behavior among preschoolers taking dance classes, and toddlers receiving music instruction demonstrate increased social cooperation with other children.
• Student participation in structured arts activities enhances cognitive abilities and social skills that support learning, such as memory, problem-solving, and communication. (While arts participation may improve academic attainment as well, any effects are fairly small. Traditional scholastic measures such as standardized tests and grades have produced mixed evidence.)

We are moderately confident that:

• Community arts activities probably contribute to healthy living habits and improved understandings of health. A few mixed-methods studies have found among participants increases in healthy eating, physical activity, positive feelings, and other areas of personal development. However, it is difficult to know if these habits were sustained over time. Even in the case of sustained arts engagement, there is mixed evidence that it reduces mortality risk in adults.
• Arts and cultural participation probably improves subjective wellbeing (self-reported happiness or life satisfaction). Studies among large population samples cite both passive and active forms of art participation as important determinants of psychological wellbeing.
• Low-income students probably benefit disproportionately from access to arts education. Benefits such as improved cognitive abilities from music participation, or improved measures of tolerance for museum attendees, tend to be higher for students from low-SES households.

We have lower levels of confidence in the arts’ contributions to social cohesion and economic vitality, based on research we reviewed. For example,  participation in the arts may promote pro-social or civic behaviors like voting and volunteering, but the direction of the relationship is unclear – i.e., do pro-civic behaviors engender arts participation or vice versa, or is there is an underlying hidden value driving both behaviors? Evidence suggests that cultural participation may also contribute to economic growth through promotion of innovative workforce, and urban regeneration, but economic impact research is complicated by various confounding factors (e.g., planning policy, availability of jobs, general health of economy), making it difficult to really isolate the specific relationship and intensity of benefits.

What We Don’t Know

• In the absence of longitudinal studies, it is difficult to know the longer-term effects of arts participation. This is most true in the areas of health and early childhood education.
• The potential to make the case for the benefits of the arts suffers from a paucity of experimental and quasi-experimental designs, particularly in the areas of economic vitality and social cohesion.
• Generally, measuring effects at a community level is difficult to do when there are confounding factors. However, greater understanding of how the arts promote quality of life at the community or regional level could help to illuminate potential strategies or interventions that might work at scale to support a healthy ecosystem.
• Createquity’s investigations on the benefits of the arts have focused broadly on general effects on a general population. It is likely that there is quite a bit of variation between disciplines, between different modes of artistic participation (e.g., passive, active, solitary, communal), and between participants (comparing demographic and other differences). Research syntheses and comparative studies looking across these differences are generally lacking.

How to Use this Information

A few action items to consider:

For funders:

• The potential of the arts to improve lives for older adults and those in clinical settings seems under-invested in relative to the strength of the evidence. Consider how age and health fit into your strategy for improving lives through the arts.
• Similarly, consider what proportion of your arts funding portfolio reaches very young children (pre-K and younger), as some of the strongest available evidence indicates benefits for that population.
• Invest in longitudinal studies into benefits of the arts, especially those that involve diverse population samples, varying geographies, and embrace multiple disciplines.
• Consider funding more meta-analyses that take stock of the current spate of literature already in existence. British researchers have published a few of these, but there is much more to be done, and research coming out all the time that could be added to the mix.

For researchers:

• Conduct studies looking at the impact of the arts in comparison to other leisure-time activities, to make effect sizes in the arts more intelligible.
• Seek ways to assess impacts of arts participation across longer time frames, and embrace more experimental study designs if possible.
• There is currently very little research on the benefits of subsidizing the arts, as opposed to the benefits of arts participation. In other words, what proportion of the benefit realized from arts programming can be specifically attributed to grants or donations with that purpose in mind?
• Be transparent in discussing methods and limitations of arts participation, to allow others to learn directly from the research experience (in other words, don’t give undue credit to the arts if there isn’t enough supporting evidence).
• Further explore hierarchies of evidence in arts research, including examples of rigorous qualitative designs.

For arts organizations:

• Foster partnerships with other sectors that might benefit from your arts organization’s work (e.g., community and civic engagement, public health, social justice), and work together to further the arts’ contributions for community-wide benefit.
• Use the evidence that is available to help guide your programming to be as impactful as possible in providing benefits to individuals in your communities.

Resource List

Everything We Know about Whether and How the Arts Improve Lives (2016)
The research could still use an upgrade in many areas. But what we know so far should cheer any arts advocate.
A summary of the benefits of various arts endeavors including participatory activities, arts therapies, and arts engagement by young children and students.

(Eng)Aging with the Arts Has its Benefits  (2016)
In fact, the best evidence we have of the arts’ impact is that they make older adults feel better.
Recent studies indicate that  the most compelling evidence of the value of the arts revolves around improving the lives of older adults.

Are the Arts the Answer to Our TV Obsession? (2016)
Television can wreak havoc on the brain and the body. But people who watch it the most don’t seem to mind.
This article explores how, from obesity to apathy, the side effects of America’s national pastime (watching the tube) are taking their toll. What else to do?

Part of Your World: On the Arts and Wellbeing (2015)
A concept that’s been making the rounds in other fields for decades provides fresh ideas about how to think about the benefits of the arts.
This piece explains how the relationship between the arts and wellbeing could earn the former a proper seat at the table in conversations about human progress.

Capsule Review: The Impacts of Culture and Sport (2017)
What are the relationships between cultural engagement, sports participation, and social wellbeing? A recent study sheds light.
A British study examines the impact of sports and cultural participation on outcomes including measurements of health, education, civic participation, and personal wellbeing.

Capsule Review: Music, Singing, and Wellbeing (2017)
Three reports explore the effects of music on quality of life.
The UK’s What Works Centre for Wellbeing recently commissioned one of the most thorough research syntheses we’ve seen on the benefits of the arts.

A New Way to Think about Intrinsic vs. Instrumental Benefits of the Arts (2015)
Which matters more, art for art’s sake or art for people’s sake? Neither, according to a recent report.
A Philadelphia-based study reveals patterns between cultural participation, economic and geographic factors, and wellbeing among citizens.

“Music,” by Flickr user Emily Ries

Titles: (1) Music, Singing and Wellbeing in Healthy Adults; (2) Music, Singing and Wellbeing for Adults Living with Diagnosed Conditions; and (3) Music, Singing and Wellbeing for Adults Living with Dementia (three reports)

Authors: Norma Daykin, Lily Grigsby Duffy, Guy Julier, Jack Lane, Louise Mansfield, Catherine Meads, Annette Payne, Alan Tomlinson, Christina Victor (reports 1, 2, & 3); Adele Burnett, Giorgia D’Innocenzo, Paul Dolan, Tess Kay, Stefano Testoni (reports 1 & 2)

Publisher: What Works Centre for Wellbeing

Year: 2016

URL: https://www.whatworkswellbeing.org/product-category/artsculture/?filter_resource-type=full-report

Topics: music, singing, wellbeing, health, dementia, older adults, anxiety, depression, young adults

Methods: Systematic review of 145 studies exploring wellbeing outcomes of music and singing for adults, grouped into three categories: healthy adults, adults with diagnosed health conditions, and adults with dementia. (Includes empirical research published from 1996 to June 2016 and systematic reviews from 2010 to 2016.) Review of grey literature and practice reports from 2013 to 2016. Studies sourced through electronic searches. Review and analysis of data from 2,500 participants for review focusing on healthy adults; 1,364 for adults with diagnosed conditions; and 249 for adults with dementia, all from many different countries.

What it says: The authors examine the relationship between music and singing interventions and subjective wellbeing (studies that include paid professional musicians, clinical music therapy, and clinical procedures were excluded). Among healthy adults, the authors found that the evidence was strongest for the effects of music, particularly singing, for older adults on morale, mental health-related quality of life, loneliness, anxiety, and depression. Among adults with diagnosed conditions, the authors found it difficult to synthesize findings due to the heterogeneity of included studies. However, the evidence points to reductions in depression and anxiety across age groups. For adults with chronic conditions (e.g., stroke, cancer), a number of studies reported reduced stress among a range of other wellbeing outcomes. Similarly, for adults with dementia, methods used across studies were inconsistent, making it difficult for the authors to draw conclusions from studies given varying outcomes, sample sizes, and settings. Key findings across the three reports are summarized below, grouped by the quality of the evidence.

High-quality evidence:

• Among young adults, music listening alleviates anxiety and improves wellbeing
• Among older adults, regular group singing enhances moral and mental health-related quality of life and reduces loneliness, anxiety, and depression; also, singing maintains a sense of wellbeing
• Among pregnant women, structured music therapy reduces stress, anxiety, and depression
• Among college nursing students, culturally relevant music interventions decrease depression
• Among palliative care hospital patients, brief music therapy is effective in supporting wellbeing

Moderate-quality evidence:

• Among young adults, music listening for short durations enhances mood and music listening, while exercising enhances the positive effects of physical activity on state anxiety
• Among healthy adults, music listening reduces stress, negative mood, and state anxiety; among males, regular listening to a particular genre of music alleviates anxiety, stress, and depression
• Among older adults, music listening may be effective in preventing or reducing depression; participation in choirs provides positive social experiences and a vehicle for identity construction and revision later in life; and songwriting and performing contributes to happiness
• Among marginalized groups (e.g., the homeless), there is value to the therapeutic benefits of group singing and the opportunity to learn, build relationships, and engage in meaningful exchange with the broader community; among the incarcerated, listening to relaxing music alleviates anxiety and anger
• Among older people with chronic conditions in residential and community settings, culturally relevant music interventions (e.g., playing an instrument, singing) decreases depression
• Among a variety of adult populations, reported wellbeing benefits include relaxation, reduction in anxiety, spiritual uplifting, improvements in mood, emotional wellbeing, confidence, and more; also, music participation can raise awareness of the significance of music in people’s lives, which can have a positive effect on health awareness, quality of life, and behavioral change

Low-quality evidence:

• Among healthy adults, group singing fosters happiness, can enhance perceived psychological wellbeing (e.g., self-esteem, emotion, enjoyment, purpose in life, etc.) and subjective wellbeing, and supports the development of musical identity and a sense of purpose
• Among older adults, learning music may help to realize long-held ambitions and promote spiritual growth; also, motivation for music participation might be to broaden social networks and to learn
• Among marginalized groups, active music making in groups enables them to build a sense of community and share culture and heritage; among young offenders in particular, music and singing projects have a positive effect on self-esteem; among prison inmates, participatory music making, singing, and performing in public supports perceived wellbeing
• Among pregnant women, listening to relaxing music enhances wellbeing and mood
• Among people experiencing PTSD, group drumming supports reduction in related symptoms
• Among patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, singing classes are associated with improvements in areas of wellbeing such as mood
• Among post-stroke patients, music therapy has a positive effect on mood
• Among adults living with chronic conditions, participation in long-term group singing improves quality of life and social and emotional wellbeing
• Among hospice patients, music therapy contributes to improved spiritual wellbeing
• Among undergraduate students, music therapy alleviates anxiety
• Among adults with dementia, listening to music enhances overall wellbeing, and for those in nursing homes, individualized music listening reduces anxiety and/or depression

Music listening accounted for over a third of interventions across studies with healthy adults, followed by under a third examining group singing. Common methodological challenges cited by the authors included small sample sizes in quantitative studies and limited theoretical analysis in some qualitative studies. It’s likely that some people with health conditions were included in some studies on healthy adults, though they were not systematically recorded, making it difficult to account for the effect of these conditions on outcomes. The authors note the following qualitative themes: enhanced personal wellbeing, characterized by happiness and other positive emotions; social wellbeing, or increased interacting and bonding with others; and identity-related benefits, associated with shared culture, past connections, self-awareness, and the perception of music as a meaningful and important part of life. Lastly, the authors conducted a meta-analysis of five studies on anxiety and six studies on depression, which revealed that music participation had no statistically significant effect on anxiety among healthy people, but that it can reduce depression.

What I think about it: Overall, this is a strong systematic review, executed mostly without flaws, though not completely. A couple of things to note which may reduce confidence include the inconsistent date ranges used to pull the grey literature, empirical studies, and systematic reviews used in the reports, as well as use of self-reported measures among participants with dementia, as noted by the authors. Another significant drawback is the potential narrowness of the search due to a focus on specific keywords like “wellbeing,” which may have led to exclusion of relevant evidence. Despite the large number of returned citations, the authors limited the scope of the review to focus on interventions with healthy adults and those with higher quality research designs. That said, findings may seem particularly robust for healthy adult populations, but really, this was just an intentional focus for the systematic review.

What it all means: This capsule review somewhat extends Createquity’s investigation on the claims to the benefits of arts participation, and the quality of evidence to back those claims, with a deeper focus on the impact of music and singing interventions on wellbeing. Notably, even with specificity around art forms, the authors note wide variation among study characteristics and outcomes, including the duration of the interventions, passive versus active forms of participation, individualized versus group experiences, as well as the range of wellbeing outcomes measured. Addressing the aforementioned methodological shortcomings would prove useful for future research in this area. To some extent, it will almost always be difficult to synthesize findings from studies on the arts and wellbeing until there is consistency in the methods employed across studies.

Nonetheless, the reports offer added value in terms of recency of studies and population breakdowns. Createquity’s investigation of the arts and wellbeing mostly cited evidence from 2014 or earlier, with a large portion of studies published before 2010. The Music, Singing and Wellbeing reports use evidence from studies published as recently as 2016, though not all (there still is publication lag). Furthermore, very few studies that Createquity came across focused on specific populations; when they did, the evidence was mixed or of lesser quality. The exception would be older adults. The strongest evidence cited in these reports focuses on older adults, similar to our findings around the benefits of participatory arts for older adults. In fact, Music, Singing and Wellbeing is an excellent supplement to that piece in particular; it includes a new large-scale randomized controlled trial of singing among older adults that was not included in our previous reviews.

Photo by NEC Corporation of America with Creative Commons license

Nowadays when we knock on the door of a child’s room to check in, we’re likely as not to see her staring at a screen. Is that a good thing? Should we be happier to find the kid reading, singing, or drawing?

These (and many other) questions lie at the heart of “Arts and Cultural Participation among Children and Young People: Insights from the Growing up in Ireland Study,” a 2016 report commissioned by the Arts Council of Ireland. The report attempts to gauge the impact of children’s cultural engagement in the context of our digital era.

Authored by Emer Smyth, research professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), “Arts and Cultural Participation” extracts and examines data from Growing up in Ireland – the National Longitudinal Study of Children (GUI), a government-funded study conducted from 2006 through 2013. Smyth’s analysis, which draws on the arts-and-culture part of the GUI data, views cultural engagement through a multifaceted prism. Covering a broad age range from early childhood to the throes of adolescence, “Arts and Cultural Participation” weaves seemingly tangential activities like reading, television viewing, and computer screen time into the findings, all while weighing the effects of social disparities in income, education, and cultural access.

Three key findings emerge from Smyth’s analysis of the data:

• Cultural engagement appears to boost both academic skills and socio-emotional wellbeing for participating children.
• The availability of school-based cultural activities correlates with extracurricular arts participation.
• Despite the best efforts of school-based interventions, engagement with culture and the arts varies widely among demographic groups in Irish society.

Casting a Wide Net

Growing Up in Ireland has a longitudinal design – with data gathered from the same subjects at progressive time points – that probes the cumulative effects of various activities in people’s lives over several years. The inquiry follows two cohorts of children: a group of 11,134 subjects recruited at 9 months of age and then surveyed at ages 3 and 5; and a second cohort of 8,568 children recruited at 9 years of age and again surveyed at age 13.

Smyth’s report for the Arts Council analyzes this data with respect to the likelihood of different groups of children to engage in cultural activities, the influence of schools’ emphasis on cultural activities on children’s cultural engagement outside of school, and the relationship between cultural participation, academic skills, and socio-emotional wellbeing. For younger subjects, researchers interviewed primary and secondary caregivers to learn about activities outside the classroom such as creative play and cultural outings. For older children, questionnaires given to principals and teachers tracked structured activities offered in schools – music, drama, painting and drawing classes – as well as more passive pursuits like attending cultural events. Data for the older group also includes interviews with the subjects themselves.

The GUI dataset tracks two sets of outcomes: cognitive development (as measured by standardized tests) and wellbeing (as measured by the prevalence of socio-emotional difficulties). They control for some individual and family characteristics, such as preschool childcare at age 3, but there are no controls for individual personality traits or certain other environmental factors that might have a role in shaping these outcomes. Thus, the findings are arguably not as reliable as would be the case if the study used an experimental design.

That said, there are other reasons to pay heed to “Arts and Cultural Participation.” While we can’t be sure that the outcomes in question follow solely from cultural engagement, the longitudinal nature of the study, with its ability to compare the same people at different points in time, points provides a useful (and relatively rare) companion to experimental inquiries that typically focus on the short-term effects of engagement. Also of note is GUI’s robust sample size (nearly 20,000 subjects) covering a broad and representative cross-section of Ireland’s population. And while there may be some cultural specificity to studying an ethnically homogenous country like Ireland, that makes the consistency of the findings with studies of the value of arts and culture in other countries all the more striking.

What is Culture, Anyway?

Perhaps the most distinctive trait of the Arts Council report is its broad definition of cultural engagement. The analysis incorporates the common pastimes of reading, watching television, and engaging in screen time (including video games) on computers or mobile devices.

The results are telling. Of all included activities, reading gets the highest marks in terms of enhancing both cognition and wellbeing. The report notes that among younger children, “being read to frequently and having more access to books contributes to improved vocabulary.” Unsurprisingly, such children later take up reading on their own. For older kids, “self-directed reading contributes to cognitive development (in terms of both verbal and numeric skills) as well as to academic self-confidence [and] socio-economic wellbeing.” The report cites the country’s relatively high use of libraries and recommends them as places to promote cultural engagement.

In contrast, television viewing and computer screen time yield mixed results: watching more television is associated with improved vocabulary and better reading achievement – but also with greater socio-emotional difficulties. Similar findings emerge for computer screen time. Smyth concludes that television and screen time may “promote verbal skills but at the expense of poorer socio-emotional wellbeing and more negative attitudes to school.” (Interestingly, no attempt is made to single out social media, possibly because at the outset of the GUI study in 2006, it was not as prevalent as it is now.)

Meanwhile, participatory engagement with the arts – activities such as painting/drawing, music or other types of creative expression, and attending cultural events – correlate with improvement in both test scores and socio-emotional wellbeing. These trends are amplified as the subjects age. “Being involved in a structured cultural activity is associated with positive outcomes across all domains,” Smyth writes, “with higher achievement levels, academic self-confidence and happiness, and lower levels of anxiety and socio-emotional difficulties.” However, it’s worth noting that the magnitude of benefits of arts activities was quite a bit less than the positive impacts of reading for pleasure (for pre-teens) or being read to (for toddlers).

Disparities in Access

Which segments of the population actually enjoy the benefits of cultural participation? The data indicates disparities in youngsters’ cultural engagement along several dimensions:

• Income. Among younger children, “more advantaged families are more likely to read to their child, take them on educational visits and cultural outings, and encourage them to engage in creative play.” Older kids from advantaged families report higher participation in organized after-school activities (which often require payment).
• Gender. Girls engage more frequently than boys across several categories of arts and culture. E.g.: “Remarkable gender differences were evident in the prevalence of painting or drawing (67 percent of girls did so every day compared with 42 percent of boys) and in enjoying music or dance (73 percent compared with 46 percent doing so every day).”
• Population density. Living in an urban area facilitates greater access to some amenities such as cultural venues, libraries, and cinema houses. However, the report cites “no significant difference between urban and rural areas” for participatory activities like painting/drawing, reading, and taking lessons in music/dance/drama.
• Immigrant status. The report cites a “significant difference” between immigrant and native Irish children in involvement in cultural activities in and out of the home, relating this in part to language barriers.

Despite these societal disparities, there’s one place where varied demographic groups can simultaneously encounter arts and culture activities: in school.

The Great Equalizer?

The report reveals a clear correlation between school-based cultural programs and extracurricular participation, both in structured after-school activities and in reading for pleasure. This suggests cultural curricula can offset some of the disparities described above: “school may be the main point of access to arts and cultural activities for many students.”

This effect is apparent even after taking socioeconomic characteristics of individual students into account. Yet Smyth notes that interventions such as Ireland’s Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) program, which launched in 2005 to ensure exposure to the arts among disadvantaged students, have not completely corrected the imbalance among different social classes. “In spite of urban DEIS schools’ promotion of cultural activities,” she writes, “their students are much less likely than others to read for pleasure or to take music/drama lessons and are more likely to spend a lot of time watching television or playing computer games.” What is not clear from the report is whether disadvantaged schools with these programs promote higher levels of cultural engagement in their students than schools without the programs would.

All in all, “Arts and Cultural Participation” makes a solid case for the benefits of cultural engagement among young people across all demographics. It points to school-based cultural activities as one means of increasing children’s engagement with arts and culture, even if it’s not a panacea. But while what we traditionally think of as arts activities (painting, drawing, music, etc.) can lay claim to some of these benefits, the most striking finding of the report is the across-the-board value of reading for pleasure, both in early childhood and especially in adolescence. So to answer the question posed at the beginning, if you catch your 13-year-old deep into the latest volume of The Hunger Games, it’s occasion to celebrate.

“Story Time” by flickr user Alan Wat

Title: Arts and Cultural Participation among Children and Young People: Insights from the Growing up in Ireland Study

Author(s): Dr. Emer Smyth

Publisher: The Arts and Research Council of Ireland and The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI)

Year: 2016

URL: http://www.artscouncil.ie/uploadedFiles/Arts-and-cultural-particiption-GUI.pdf

Topics: cultural engagement, television watching, cultural engagement in children, wellbeing, disparities of access, arts education

Methods: Longitudinal study, survey, participant interviews, descriptive analysis, multivariate analysis

What it says: The report from ESRI and the Arts Council of Ireland analyzes data from “Growing up in Ireland – the National Longitudinal Study of Children (GUI),” in order to address three research topics: 1) the likelihood of different groups of children to engage in cultural activities, 2) the influence of different schools’ emphasis on cultural activities on children’s cultural engagement out of school, and 3) the relationship between participation in cultural activities and other outcomes including academic skills and socio-emotional wellbeing.

The GUI is a longitudinal study performed on two cohorts of children. The first cohort of 11,134 were recruited at nine months, and then surveyed in two subsequent waves at 3 and 5 years of age (the report focuses on data from the second of the two waves). The second cohort of 8,568 children was recruited at 9 years old, with a follow-up study at 13 years old. At each time point, the study consisted of surveys and interviews with the children’s caregivers, tests of cognitive abilities and wellbeing, and surveys completed by the children’s school principals and teachers for the older cohorts. Data from all of the cohorts was re-weighted to ensure that is was representative of the population of children in Ireland.

The researchers analyzed a broad range of types of cultural engagement, including: being read to and self-directed reading, participation in drawing, painting, singing, and rhymes, participation in organized cultural activities such as drama or music, being taken to cultural events or on educational visits, and television watching and computer games. When researchers analyzed the distribution of cultural engagement among different groups, they found higher rates of engagement among children from more advantaged social backgrounds, and with higher levels of educational attainment by the mothers, to varying degrees. Children from highly educated and middle class families watched less television and had less screen time overall. The researchers also note the strong influence of gender on cultural engagement, with girls in multiple age groups participating at higher rates. In a couple of cases – including participation in singing, painting or drawing by three-year-olds and independent reading among nine-year-olds – gender had a greater influence on cultural participation than social background.

Researchers also analyzed the relationship between cultural participation and other outcomes for children. The researchers measured two sets of outcomes: cognitive development as measured by standardized tests and wellbeing as measured by the prevalence of socioeconomic difficulties. The analysis controlled for individual and family characteristics, the type of childcare at age 3, and whether the child had started school at 5, but there was no way to control for individual personalities or other characteristics of the children. However, the second set of data collected for each cohort (at 5 years and 13 years respectively) was analyzed in terms of change from the first set of measurements, which makes that data a more reliable estimate of the actual effects of cultural engagement. The most noticeable relationships between changes in various outcomes over time and cultural engagement were:

• Being read to frequently between the ages of 3 and 5 and having more access to books contributes to improved vocabulary at age five.
• Watching higher amounts of television between ages three and five is related to improved vocabulary but also greater socio-emotional difficulties at age five.
• Reading, painting and drawing, attending cultural events, and going on frequent educational visits are all related to decreases in socio-emotional difficulties.
• There is moderate improvement in tests on identifying picture similarities for children who are read to, who paint or draw, and who attend cultural events frequently at the age of five.
• Among older children, self-directed reading and taking part in structured cultural activities outside school time contribute to cognitive development (in terms of both verbal and numeric skills) as well as to academic self-confidence.
• Self-directed reading also contributes to socio-emotional wellbeing.
• Similar to patterns observed in the early years, watching higher amounts of television between the ages of 9 and 13 is related to improved verbal skills but at the expense of greater emotional difficulties.

The researchers also looked at data provided by the children’s school principals and teachers to assess the role of school-based cultural activities. The researchers found that, taking account of social background and other family characteristics, children attending schools with a strong cultural emphasis – measured as a combination of the relative importance of cultural activities to the school’s ethos and the amount of cultural extracurricular activities provided – were significantly more likely to be involved in structured cultural activities and frequent reading. They were also less likely to spend a lot of time watching television. Researchers also looked at differences across types of schools. Notably, Urban DEIS (or disadvantaged) schools were more likely to employ creative activities and play for younger children, and to provide music/dance and arts/crafts activities at the primary level – as well as musical instruments and dance at the second level because of programs and interventions aimed at those specific schools, designed to promote retention and school engagement. However, children at these schools are less likely to read for pleasure or take music and drama lessons and are more likely to spend lots of time watching television or playing computer games, meaning that these interventions are not enough to overcome the disparities of access to cultural activities observed based on social class.

What I think about it: The report makes excellent use of data from a larger study on child outcomes, which seems to have been collected with some study of cultural engagement in mind. While the role of some potential confounding variables like personality factors can’t be determined from the study design, the longitudinal nature of the study is a valuable companion to existing experimental studies that typically focus on the short-term effects of arts engagement. The analysis of participation data alongside individual and familial characteristics allows the researchers to identify disparities of access to cultural opportunities in the early years of life that are replicated across the lifespan. Finally, the school-based data points to the viability of one of the most common interventions to promote arts access and participation: arts education in schools.

The report showcases the importance of including cultural information within large-scale studies of this nature. It also points out interesting connections between cultural activities as traditionally defined and popular-culture diversions such as television watching, revealing the research benefits of considering cultural activities holistically among audiences of all ages.

What it all means: Within this study, reading unsurprisingly wins the day in terms of generating strong positive outcomes for children, but other forms of cultural participation also generate positive results. This study’s longitudinal design allows us to observe how incremental arts benefits add up throughout the actual lives of children over time. While not always dramatic or universal to every arts discipline, the long-term benefits measured in the study are quite apparent, especially in relation to social and emotional development in younger children and cognitive benefits in older children.

Interestingly, both reading and television watching are found to contribute to vocabulary-skills development for children. Yet watching high amounts of television (and spending high amounts of screen time) are associated with higher levels of socio-emotional difficulties. At the same time, arts activities including painting and drawing, attending cultural events, and educational visits correlate with fewer socio-emotional difficulties, which could point to arts engagement as a viable way to counteract negative socio-emotional effects from television watching for young children.

The analysis on disparities of access largely confirms trends researchers have observed in adults. The differences in engagement observed between genders raise interesting questions about how young boys might become more fully engaged in the arts. Finally, the data on schools is both encouraging and not. The study does suggest that emphasis on cultural activities at school can effect cultural engagement outside of school time. However, many programs designed to ensure that arts education activities are provided at disadvantaged schools in Ireland have not effectively overcome disparities of access to cultural activities (besides television). What is not clear from the report is whether disadvantaged schools with these programs promote higher levels of cultural engagement in their students than schools without the programs would. The author also makes note of widespread use of libraries by families with young children, and wonders if they may be a fruitful site for cultural engagement programs.

All of this together suggests that, in Ireland, the arts do indeed benefit children, though not more than reading does. And arts education in schools has a role to play in encouraging higher levels of arts engagement. Questions remain as to whether in-school arts education alone can level disparities of arts access based on socioeconomic status. The larger patterns revealed here are likely to be similar in other comparable societies, but further longitudinal studies in different locations would help to shed light on the long-terms benefits of the arts on individuals within a given society, and the benefits of interventions on the ground.

“silo” by Flickr user davedude

(Originally published by Stanford Social Innovation Review, December 22, 2016; reposted here with permission. This piece was conceived before the recent election, but is perhaps even more relevant in light of the events of the past few months. -IDM)

About a decade ago, as a fresh-faced summer intern halfway through my MBA program at the Yale School of Management, I found myself given the extraordinary task of helping one of the largest foundations in the United States map out the first-ever logic model for its $20 million a year performing arts program. My colleagues on the program team had come up with a set of well-articulated impacts that spoke to the foundation’s goals for its performing arts grants. But we had not tried to connect these impacts to the foundation’s overarching mission statement emphasizing human welfare. Shouldn’t we close that gap, I wondered? When I brought it up, I was gently told that wasn’t part of the plan, and being the fresh-faced intern that I was, the matter quickly dropped.

That summer internship was one of the highlights of my career. Every day I was in an environment that crackled with intellectual curiosity and constantly reminded me how much I still had to learn about the world. The logic model was finished, and ultimately helped guide the distribution of hundreds of grants over several years. And yet that conversation about tying program-level impacts to organization-level objectives somehow felt unresolved to me, even years later. I didn’t have the vocabulary for it at the time, but I was sure there was a way to treat investments in the arts as part of an integrated strategy to make the world a better place, without casting aside what makes the arts unique.

Over the past half-century, a few theories have sprung up to describe how and why we support the arts through philanthropy and government subsidy. These theories generally argue that participation in arts and culture generates certain benefits to individuals and societies, and that philanthropic support is necessary to activate or maximize those benefits. Scholars have further divided these benefits into two categories: intrinsic—the notion of “art for art’s sake” or the idea that support for the arts is self-justifying—and instrumental—the idea that arts activities have non-arts-related outcomes that are valuable in their own right.

One problem with the intrinsic vs. instrumental distinction is that it’s something of a false dichotomy: Interrogate a dedicated arts supporter about why she believes funding is important, and you’ll eventually uncover reasons that are not specific to the arts. The arts teach us how to see and understand the world? So do history books. The arts provide a space for exercising creative potential? So does electrical engineering. One could reasonably argue that all the benefits of the arts are instrumental at some level, in service of some larger goal. But what is that goal, exactly? When we try to maximize the good in the world, what does that actually mean in practice?

A loose community of scholars has been trying to answer precisely that question for the past 70 years or so. Drawing from fields as diverse as economics, public health, psychology, and philosophy, and variously using the terms “wellbeing, “quality of life” and other variants, this area of inquiry developed in large part as an effort to provide holistic alternatives for conceptualizing and measuring human progress and vitality, in contrast to narrow, siloed metrics such as gross domestic product (GDP). For a field so young and diffuse, it has nevertheless had some notable impacts on social policy. The nation of Bhutan was one of the first government entities to explicitly reject GDP, adopting the novel concept of gross national happiness in its wake. Nobel-winning economist Amartya Sen created the United Nations Human Development Index in accordance with his theory of human capabilities—the notion that what makes life worth living is the freedom to be the person you want to be. Other attempts to construct integrated measures of social progress include the Sustainable Development Goals, the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, the OECD Better Life Index, and the quality-adjusted life year indicator. The UK government has gone especially far in adopting “subjective wellbeing,” which is basically equivalent to self-reported happiness, in its own policy apparatus. Meanwhile, the burgeoning effective altruism movement has made efforts to institutionalize the practice of “cause prioritization” based on clear-headed analysis of how to do the most good.

Even though the various examples above represent a lot of variation, they are variations on a singular theme: What is most important in this world? They all attempt to answer that question from a holistic perspective, and share a willingness to make a connection between measurable, real-world outcomes and philosophical ideals.

Which brings us back to our logic model for the performing arts. If we think of wellbeing as a holistic measure of what is good in the world, then we can justify philanthropic support for the arts ever so simply by: 1) the arts’ contribution to wellbeing; and 2) philanthropy’s enabling of that contribution. Seen this way, the false distinction between intrinsic and instrumental benefits falls away, and instead we can think of them as direct and indirect contributions to wellbeing.

Like the dialogue about defining specific wellbeing and quality-of-life metrics, the research literature establishing the arts’ contribution to wellbeing is very much in active development. But already, we know for example that participatory arts activities provide myriad benefits to older adults, improving subjective wellbeing along with more concrete capabilities such as motor skills, cognition, and reduced dementia risk. As other benefits become well-established through better research, the role that the arts have to play in enabling a better world will become clearer to all.

My suggestion as fresh-faced intern to integrate arts outcomes into the foundation’s overarching strategy might have come 10 years too early. Today, however, there is evidence that others—including the Ford, Kresge, and Irvine Foundations—are starting to think beyond silos for their arts funding. As a society, we had good intuitive instincts when we deemed the arts worthy of philanthropic attention. Yet we didn’t engage in the analytical process of understanding exactly why. Now, we collectively have an opportunity to do just that, and make our support of the arts more targeted and impactful as a result. The entire world will benefit if we do so.

Methodology for Rating Evidence

We use the following definitions for placement on the graph and for describing benefits in the document.

Does the evidence indicate that the benefit exists?

• Yes: the majority of the available evidence supports the claim
• No: the majority of the available evidence opposes the claim
• Mixed: neither of the above conditions is true

How strong is the quality of the evidence?

• High: multiple studies with causal designs (experimental or quasi-experimental)
• Medium: a single study with a causal design, or multiple studies that otherwise make a compelling case for causal interpretation in the judgment of our team
• Low: neither of the above conditions is met

In cases where the supporting, mixed, and opposing evidence is of differing strength, the stronger evidence is given more weight in determining whether the evidence supports the claim.

In the body of the article, we use the qualifier “probably” to describe effects in the Yes/Medium cell of the matrix, “may” to describe effects in the Yes/Low, No/Low, and all Mixed cells of the matrix, “probably not” to describe effects in the No/Medium cell of the matrix, and “does not” to describe effects in the No/High cell of the matrix.

Note: in general, we support methodological diversity, and are not dogmatic about valuing “gold standard” study designs such as randomized controlled trials at the expense of all other types of research. However, in practice, studies with causal designs tend to be much rarer than descriptive and case-study-based research, and therefore more valuable due to their scarcity and the fact that they are typically more challenging to conduct. In addition, given that the questions explored in this review are inherently causal in nature – can we trust that an activity or intervention makes some kind of benefit more likely – it is appropriate to privilege designs that make a convincing attempt to rule out alternative hypotheses for any observed effects. Our rating of evidence strength takes these considerations into account.

Full Bibliography

Below is a full list of resources which informed this research investigation. Much of our research focused on literature reviews or meta-analyses, and we have included here works that were consulted directly, as well as resources that were encountered within a review and factored into our findings. Works that received a thorough review from Createquity are marked with an asterisk (*).

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Vlismas, W., Malloch, S., & Burnham, D. (2013). The effects of music and movement on mother–infant interactions. Early Child Development and Care, 183(11), 1669–1688.

Wolf, D. (2016). Why Making Music Matters: WolfBrown and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute. Retrieved from http://www.carnegiehall.org/uploadedFiles/Resources_and_Components/PDF/WMI/WhyMusicMatters.pdf

*Wali, A., Severson, R., & Longoni, M. (2002). Informal Arts: Finding cohesion, capacity, and other cultural benefits in unexpected places. The Chicago Center for Arts Policy at Columbia College. Retrieved from http://www.americansforthearts.org/sites/default/files/Informal_Arts_Full_Report.pdf

Weinberg, M. K., & Joseph, D. (2016). If you’re happy and you know it: Music engagement and subjective wellbeing. Psychology of Music, 305735616659552. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735616659552

*What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth. (2016). Evidence Review 3: Arts and Culture. Retrieved from http://www.whatworksgrowth.org/public/files/Policy_Reviews/16-06-15_Culture_and_Sport_Updated.pdf

Wheatley, D., & Bickerton, C. (2016). Subjective well-being and engagement in arts, culture and sport. Journal of Cultural Economics, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10824-016-9270-0

Winter, T. (2014). A Somatic Ethnography of Grand Gestures Elders Dance Group (Project Report No. AH/L005638/1). Sunderland: University of Sunderland. Retrieved from http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/5820/.

Zeilig, H. (2014). The arts in dementia care – A critical review of cultural and arts practices in dementia care in the UK. Arts & Humanities Research Council.

“Catalog” by Flickr user Beyond DC

The platitudes are on the lips of every arts supporter, ready to be recalled at the first sign of a public hearing or potential funding cut. “The arts are essential – a necessity, not a luxury.” “The arts help kids learn.” “The arts are the foundation of the knowledge economy.” It feels good to say those things, especially if you’re someone who has spent a life in the arts. But are they actually true? Are we pulling a fast one on ourselves and our audience by saying them? Or are we doing a service to the world by spreading the good news?

Over the past half century, hundreds of researchers have spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars grappling with these questions. And while the literature still has a ways to go before we can consider the answers definitive, it is becoming clear in at least several arenas that it’s not just our imagination: arts participation really does improve lives. In particular:

• Participatory arts activities help to maintain the health and quality of life of older adults. As discussed in our previous feature, singing improves mental health and subjective wellbeing; taking dance classes bolsters cognition and motor skills; dancing and playing a musical instrument reduce the risk of dementia; and visual arts generate increases in self-esteem, psychological health, and social engagement.

• Arts therapies contribute to positive clinical outcomes, such as reduction in anxiety, stress, and pain for patients. Music interventions tend to dominate studies in this area, mostly characterized by passive forms of participation (e.g., listening to music).

• Arts participation in early childhood promotes social and emotional development. For example, teachers report fewer instances of shy, aggressive, and anxious behavior among preschoolers taking dance classes, and toddlers receiving music instruction demonstrate increased social cooperation with other children.

• Student participation in structured arts activities enhances cognitive abilities and social skills that support learning, such as memory, problem-solving, and communication. (While arts participation may improve academic attainment as well, any effects are fairly small.)

We’ve catalogued these and other benefits in an interactive graphic we’ve created – the first of its kind – that explores the various benefits claimed for arts participation along with the strength of evidence backing those claims. See how the benefits stack up against each other at a glance, or zoom in to read what the research has to say about specific questions. (Read about our methodology here.) We recommend viewing in full-screen mode for best results.

Before we dive in further, a little context-setting is in order. The first thing to note is that what you’re going to read below is a work in progress. The literature on the effects of arts participation is vast and of highly uneven quality. To arrive at the conclusions we express here, we’ve relied heavily on existing literature reviews and meta-analyses on the topics in question, which means that any errors of interpretation or questionable judgments in those reviews are likely repeated here. Over time, we intend to get to know the underlying studies and publications and fill in gaps or make corrections as needed. In addition, new research on these topics comes out on a regular basis, and sometimes it challenges conclusions that we had previously drawn about a topic. For both of these reasons, you can expect that we will make tweaks both to the interactive and the content below as we gain access to new information going forward.

Second, it’s important to remember that the focus of this review is quite broad, and looks for general effects on a general population. It’s likely that in practice, there is quite a bit of variation between disciplines, between different modes of artistic participation, and between participants (e.g., different personality types). We can already say, for example, that music is both the most-studied intervention and the one that seems to have the most robust evidence behind it. As we get to know the literature better via the process described above, we’ll be able to identify these kinds of nuances with more precision.

Readers interested in the details behind the evidence in the article are encouraged to take a look at our capsule reviews on participatory arts for older adults, cultural arts and dementia, arts and early childhood, and arts and at-risk youth, all of which are based on in-depth literature and systematic reviews conducted by others and outline common methodological shortcomings and recommendations for future research. Of particular note is our capsule review on the Cultural Value Project (CVP), which shares the results of the UK-based Arts and Humanities Research Council’s three-year investigation into the value of culture. While the full bibliography to this article is far more extensive, our investigation relied heavily on the above sources.

Feelin’ Good: Physical and Mental Health

Of the four broad areas of arts impact that we identified in our review, the most robust research has taken place in the areas of education and personal development and physical and mental health. In fact, the evidence underlying the benefits of the arts for older adults is so compelling that we decided to write a whole separate article about it. A variety of participatory arts activities improve older adults’ mental and physical health, and in some cases, lessen the likelihood of developing dementia later in life. For instance, weekly singing has been shown to decrease anxiety and depression; weekly dance has been shown to improve cognition and attention, posture and balance, and hand and motor skills; and lifelong engagement with music, particularly playing an instrument, is correlated with improved memory among older adults. The arts also play a role in improving the overall quality of life for older adults more generally, such as attitudes toward social life.

While this was some of the most compelling evidence uncovered by our review, older adults aren’t the only beneficiaries. Arts therapies have been shown to improve clinical outcomes among patients. For example, a 2004 review of more than 400 pieces of literature exploring the arts’ and humanities’ relationship to healthcare and the arts’ effects on health identified a number of impacts for arts therapies. This includes visual art and music helping to reduce anxiety and depression among cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, an association between music and reduction in anxiety and blood pressure in cardiovascular care, and reduction in use of pain medicine following surgery. Music tends to dominate these studies, with a generally positive effect on anxiety, stress, and pain reduction among patients. Another strain of studies has explored the related claim that visual art and design may help to improve the quality of healthcare settings, thus improving patient satisfaction and clinical outcomes. While the methodological quality of the evidence in this area is considerably weaker than that described above, initial results support the claim..

The arts may also generate health impacts beyond dedicated healthcare settings. We found that community arts activities probably contribute to healthy living habits and improved understanding of health. Using a mixed-methods approach that included a community-randomized design, an evaluation of 100 small participatory arts projects across impoverished parts of London found increases among participants in healthy eating, physical activity, and positive feelings. Similarly, a 2003 mixed-methods evaluation of the Wrekenton Lanterns Project, a community arts project drawing attention to coronary heart disease, suggested that arts activities contributed to healthy personal development, including healthy eating and mothering, mental health improvements, and increased absorption of health information. In the absence of longitudinal studies, however, it is difficult to know if participants sustained these habits over time.

The strongest and most consistent evidence for the health impacts of the arts relate specifically to mental health: in particular, reductions in depression and anxiety. It should come as no surprise, then, that arts participation is associated with subjective wellbeing, or one’s perceived quality of life. Over the past several decades, growing scholarship on wellbeing has sought to address just how well a person thinks they’re doing, with ongoing development of indicator systems that, in more recent years, have begun to incorporate measures related to arts, culture, and creativity. Createquity has been interested in the connection between arts participation and subjective wellbeing for some time. In our own analysis of data from the 2012 General Social Survey, we found no relationship between having attended an exhibit or performance in the past year and one’s satisfaction with life. However, a subsequent research spotlight revealed that among a large sample of Americans, more active forms of cultural participation including playing a musical instrument, gardening, and craft-making were positively associated with life satisfaction.

Our current review of the literature suggests that while causal attribution remains difficult to pin down, arts and cultural participation probably improves self-reported happiness or life satisfaction. A 2010 study of 1,500 randomly selected Italians analyzed two data sets on general wellbeing and cultural participation, yielding surprising results: cultural experiences – in this instance, passive modes of participation such as cinema, theatre, concert, and museum going – were the second most important determinant of psychological wellbeing, second only to the incidence of diseases, and ranking above factors like job, income, and education. And while not all arts participants are necessarily “doing well,” there is some evidence that unhappy people might be worse off it not for their cultural activities. For instance, a 2008 study of 1,124 choral singers in England, Germany, and Australia found that among respondents who scored on the lowest third of the psychological wellbeing scale, singing in a choir had a significant impact on their ability to cope with physical and mental health issues, among other personal challenges. There is some work being done to explore these issues in the US, but existing data sets on wellbeing and arts participation are not as easy to cross-reference. For instance, a 2014 study found an association between arts participation and wellbeing, but the study design made it difficult to determine if it was indeed attributed to arts participation and not other factors.

From Jungle Gyms to Jobs: Education and Personal Development

Although some of the strongest evidence we’ve come across speaks to the value of participatory arts for older adults, one doesn’t have to be a senior citizen, or for that matter even an adult at all, to benefit. On balance, the evidence suggests that the impact of arts and culture on psychological wellbeing is consistent across the lifespan, as far back even as early childhood.

A recent NEA literature review found ample evidence that arts participation in early childhood (birth to eight years) promotes social and emotional development. For example, a 2013 randomized controlled trial of 102 toddlers found that those participating in classroom-based music education were more likely to increase their level of social cooperation, interaction, and independence (as reported by their teachers) than a control group that did not receive a music education program. Similarly, a 2006 study of 40 preschoolers found that those that met with a dance group for eight weeks had stronger improvements in social skills and showed noticeable reductions in shy, anxious and aggressive behavior compared to a control group.

For slightly older kids, student participation in structured arts activities enhances cognitive abilities and social skills that support learning (e.g., memory, problem-solving, and communication). A 2010 systematic review of the Culture and Sport Evidence (CASE) database in the UK concluded that participation in “structured arts activities” could increase young people’s performance on a range of indicators of cognitive and social ability. Perhaps even more importantly, there is good reason to believe that arts education programs are disproportionately impactful for lower-income children. The NEA literature review on early childhood mentioned above includes a Head Start arts education experiment with 88 preschoolers from low socioeconomic status families. Those who participated in music activities showed improved cognitive abilities and increased ability to pay attention than children in the control group that received regular Head Start instruction. According to the NEA literature review, other specific benefits to lower-income youth include increases in confidence, student behavior and social skills. These findings are consistent with those from the well-known randomized controlled trial to measure the impact of field trips to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Benefits such as enhanced critical thinking skills and improved measures of tolerance were two or three times higher for children attending schools in rural areas or that served predominantly low-income households.

An earlier systematic literature review of 188 studies, the landmark 2001 Reviewing Education and the Arts Project (REAP) study, offers another perspective on the evidence base for non-arts academic outcomes of arts education. After comparing 275 effect sizes across groups of comparable studies, the researchers found strong causal evidence for the impact of music listening on spatial-temporal reasoning; learning to play music on spatial reasoning; and classroom drama instruction on verbal skills. However, the evidence was weaker in several other areas, including most effects on reading and math performance.

Indeed, one puzzle embedded in the extensive literature on arts education is how little the aforementioned benefits to learning and cognitive capabilities seem to translate to traditional measures of academic attainment such as standardized tests. Evidence from a wide body of literature suggests that even if there is a positive effect, it is so small as to be practically meaningless. The CASE systematic review cited above found that overall, participation in structured arts activities only improved attainment in high-school-aged students (as measured by standardized tests) by one to two percent. Similarly, a review from the Education Endowment Foundation in the UK concluded that arts participation had “positive but low” effects on academic learning in English, math, and science.

A major drawback within this literature is a lack of longitudinal studies. Short-term experimental designs that assign some students to an arts program and others to a control group are useful for isolating the effects of that particular program, but they usually only measure temporary effects on participants. Both the NEA’s early childhood literature review and the Cultural Value Project note the dearth of research that might isolate the long-term effects of arts participation in childhood over a lifetime.

Arts as Economic Engine, Sort of

In contrast to the health and educational literature described above, research on the economic and social impacts of the arts does not paint as straightforward a picture of benefit to society. In some cases this is because the available research simply is not very robust (unsurprising, given that measuring effects at a community level is far more difficult than doing so at an individual level); in others, it is because the evidence is conflicting, or the implications of it unclear.

Arguably the most convincing case to be made here is that cultural assets (organizations, venues, etc.) probably contribute to higher real estate values at a neighborhood level, but this insight is complicated by questions around the potential negative impacts of gentrification. For instance, a 2013 study on how cultural districts reshape neighborhoods found evidence that cultural districts “have significant impacts on property values,” although the evidence of effects on poverty, education, and families was weaker. A 2006 case study of MASS MoCA and its surrounding neighborhood in rural Massachusetts found significant increases in property values following the opening of the contemporary art museum. Similarly, between 2006 and 2008, a multi-pronged investigation by Mark Stern and Susan Seifert’s Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) revealed a relationship between concentrated cultural assets and rising real estate values. It remains unclear, however, whether this effect generates benefits for existing, non-property-owning residents, like rising income levels or job prospects, or alternatively, brings potential harm through disruption of existing population dynamics. Perhaps surprisingly, there is a general lack of evidence that the arts contribute to concrete negative neighborhood revitalization impacts like displacement, but little attention has been devoted to “fuzzier” outcomes like feeling a loss of ownership.

Another common type of research in cultural economics is the much-touted (and much-criticized) economic impact study. If you work in the arts, chances are you’ve seen a press release at some point in the past decade announcing that the arts generate some large dollar amount in revenue and impressive number of jobs in your community. Claims of this nature may be true in a literal sense, but are usually far less meaningful than they first appear. Sure, the arts industry creates jobs, but so does literally every other industry. The more relevant question is this: “do the arts spur spending in the economy that wouldn’t have happened otherwise?” Evidence for that more ambitious proposal is mixed. For example, a review of 36 studies by the UK-based What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth found that the effects of large-scale facilities on local employment are limited at best; however, the review included both cultural and sports facilities, and was heavily weighted toward the latter.

Speaking of employment, one of the few studies that examines the longer-term effects of arts and cultural participation suggests that cultural participation may contribute to capacity for innovation within the workforce. In an analysis of the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, Laura Niemi compared more than 7,000 Americans’ history of arts participation as children to their career history as adults. Niemi found a strong association between interest in the visual arts in adolescence and later innovation and entrepreneurship, which held true even when controlling for personality traits associated with innovation (like a willingness to take risks) and educational attainment. Family income, however, was not tested as a control factor.

If the arts help produce more innovative individuals, it stands to reason that the presence of arts and cultural activities and creative industries in a region may contribute to increased productivity and innovation in other industries in that region. For example, a 2015 empirical study of 2,000 creative enterprises in Austria found evidence to support three theories for how creative industries affect an economy’s overall innovation performance: being a major source of innovative ideas, products and services; offering services that lend themselves to innovative activities in other enterprises; and using new technologies to encourage further development in tech production. Do creative industries similarly make a region wealthier? Maybe: a 2011 study examining the relationship between manufacturing, service, and creative industry agglomerations and the wealth of 250 European regions found that for every percent increase in employment in the creative industries, there is a little over a half-percent increase in GDP. As with much of this literature, though, including that seeking to test Richard Florida’s hypothesis that creative industries draw talented workers and employers to a region and increase wealth that way, causation and correlation are difficult to tease out.

Come Together: On the Arts and Social Cohesion

The state of the evidence is even muddier when it comes to the impact of the arts on the social fabric between and among communities. As with economic vitality, evidence in this arena suffers from a lack of experimental and quasi-experimental designs that would help us better understand the social benefits of the arts. However, much of the difficulty is also rooted in the theoretical complexities that complicate coming to a shared definition of terms in this area. Social benefits of the arts have been described by many names, including social capital, social wellbeing, social inclusion, arts for social change, and more. We even struggled with what label to use to describe benefits in this area, and consider “social cohesion” to be a preliminary designation.

One of the better-studied research topics in this area is the relationship between participation in the arts and pro-social or civic behaviors like voting, volunteering, or attending community meetings. A 2014 Arts Council England evidence review found “growing evidence that children and young people’s engagement with arts and culture has a knock-on impact on their wider social and civic participation.” More specifically, based on British and American systematic reviews, high school students who participate in the arts “are twice as likely to volunteer than those that don’t…and 20 percent more likely to vote as young adults.” However, the major problem with research of this nature is that it does not test the very plausible counter-hypothesis that a common personality trait or set of values drives both arts engagement and civic behavior. Experimental work in this area would be extremely valuable for answering that question.

What about the relationship between arts assets and indicators of social wellbeing at a neighborhood level? The best work on this front has been conducted by SIAP’s Stern and Seifert, who attempted in a recent project to analyze multiple dimensions of economic and social wellbeing in Philadelphia. Their investigation, however, failed to find correlations between cultural assets and most indicators of social wellbeing after controlling for race and economic vitality, casting significant doubt on this effect.

Can the arts help increase trust and understanding between people of different backgrounds through dialogue or creating spaces for storytelling? In the United States, Animating Democracy and SIAP have both conducted qualitative and descriptive research into this phenomenon. However, the literature is almost entirely bereft of control groups, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions. One of the few exceptions is the aforementioned Crystal Bridges study on field trip attendance, which reported an increase in tolerance and “historical empathy” among students who attended the museum compared to students who didn’t. It’s difficult to know, however, how meaningful the proxy measure used in this study is in practice. Furthermore, one of the problems for this area of research is that it seemingly matters a lot what messages are being communicated through the artwork when it comes to building bridges across social divides, complicating attempts like this one to assess in general terms whether this type of intervention “works.”

What It All Adds Up To

Last year, Createquity explored the literature on wellbeing and quality of life in general, and noted that culture is often missing from frameworks that seek to capture a holistic definition of wellbeing. This investigation, and the ongoing work that will flow from it, demonstrates how and where the arts fit most naturally into such a framework.

• Arts participation contributes directly to quality of life by increasing self-reported happiness and life satisfaction. This is probably the case for the population in general, and is almost certainly true for the subset of that population that pursues sustained engagement in arts activities over time. In addition, robust effects of arts participation on reducing anxiety and depression have been demonstrated for people in healthcare settings and older adults, two potentially vulnerable populations. This research validates Createquity’s thematic focus on ensuring equitable access to opportunities to participate in the arts across society as a whole.
• Arts participation contributes indirectly to wellbeing via, at a minimum, its effects on education and personal development (particularly the development of emotional and social skills in early childhood, and the development of cognitive capabilities and communication skills in later childhood), and physical health (particularly in healthcare settings). Other indirect effects to wellbeing may exist as well, but the research is not yet at a place where these can be demonstrated conclusively.

This review likewise highlights where additional investments in research would be especially productive. Experimental and quasi-experimental designs are extremely rare in the research on the economic and social impacts of the arts; initiatives to fill this gap, though likely expensive and difficult to implement, would prove enormously helpful in resolving many of the causation vs. correlation conundrums that currently pervade this literature. Even in the health and education areas where these techniques are more common, however, there remains considerable room for further research and greater methodological ambition. There is a strong need in these areas for studies that examine the effects of arts participation over a long period of time, and for randomized controlled trials that use larger sample sizes.

As stated in the beginning of this article, both the research literature itself and our understanding of it are works in progress. We will continue to update and adjust the infographic describing benefits as new research comes to light in the months and years to come. As we learn more about how the arts benefit lives, the knowledge will inform our ongoing inquiry into the most important issues in the arts and what we can do about them.

“Crayons” by flickr user nathanmac87

Title: The Arts in Early Childhood: Social and Emotional Benefits of Participation

Author(s): Melissa Menzer

Publisher: National Endowment for the Arts

Year: 2015

URL: https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/arts-in-early-childhood-dec2015-rev.pdf

Topics: Arts participation, early childhood development, Social and emotional development

Methods: Literature Review

What it says: The report presents a review of studies examining the effects of arts participation on social and emotional skills in early childhood (defined as birth to eight years.) The review was limited to peer-reviewed studies published between January 2000 and June 2015 which included quantitative analysis.

Overall the review found that there is evidence that participation in arts in early childhood is associated with positive social-emotional development (e.g., showing empathy, cooperating with others), at least in the short term. The review summarizes the available evidence by arts discipline and two areas of social-emotional development (social skills and emotional regulation). At least five studies included in the review point to an association between music participation and development of social skills, and another three found a similar relationship between visual arts and theatre participation and social skills development. Three studies did not find a relationship between arts participation and social-emotional development, but the author argues that overall, a “general trend in the literature” points to positive benefits for young children’s social-emotional development. In addition, the author found strong evidence of an positive association between participation in music, visual, theatre, and integrated arts programs and emotional regulation amongst young children. Only one study found no association between arts participation and emotional regulation.

The study further examines potential differences around these effects in regards to age, gender, socioeconomic status, and developmental disability. There were no observable differences in effect in regards to gender, and the age groups in the studies were too homogenous to detect effects based on age. Studies that focused on children of low socioeconomic status found significant impacts related to social-emotional health as a result of arts participation when compared to control groups. Although there is limited available research, arts participation was observed to be associated with positive social-emotional development among children with developmental differences such as autism.

The review notes a few important characteristics of the available literature, notably that there are significantly more studies examining music participation than other disciplines, and that many of the studies use samples that are too small to detect differences in specific demographics. Menzer also notes that experimental research designs are particularly valuable and should be pursued in future research. Her proposed research agenda consists of 1) research on the long-term effects of arts participation in early childhood across the lifespan, 2) determining the effect of demographic characteristics, 3) outcomes of arts participation specifically for children with developmental disabilities, 4) a better understanding of variation in outcomes by discipline. The report also notes that future literature review projects from the NEA may explore arts participation’s effects on other aspects of early childhood development, such as cognitive and physiological development.

What I think about it: This review provides a detailed yet concise summary of the recent research literature on this topic. The details provided about the methodology of the review, as well as the specificity with which the research characteristics and findings were summarized, make this a valuable example of the type of synthesis that will help policy makers and artistic professionals understand how the arts can contribute in specific areas (such as early childhood development). Its exclusive focus on peer-reviewed studies, however, is a limitation.

What it all means: This first chapter of the report mentions its connection to the research agenda of the Interagency Task Force on the Arts and Human Development, of which the NEA is a part. This report speaks to the value of this task force’s research agenda and the overarching work of the NEA towards understanding the mechanisms through with the arts improve the lives of citizens. This report is a step in better understanding how the arts contribute to positive outcomes along the lifespan, and the research agenda it advances is sound. A better understanding of these mechanisms will not only be helpful in advocating for public investment, but also in promoting the design of programs that are most effective in producing positive social and emotional outcomes for children.

“Youth” by flickr user CN

Title: Arts-Based Programs and Arts Therapies for At-Risk, Justice-Involved, and Traumatized Youths

Author(s): Development Services Group, Inc

Publisher: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Year: 2016

URL: http://www.ojjdp.gov/mpg/litreviews/Arts-Based-Programs-for-Youth.pdf

Topics: Arts participation, arts programs, arts therapy, youth development, at-risk youth, justice-involved youth, traumatized youth

Methods: Literature Review

What it says: This study presents a review of recent research on arts programs for three types of youth: 1)at-risk youth, or those with risk factors that increase likelihood of delinquency or other problem behaviors; 2) system-involved youth who are currently in the juvenile justice system; and 3) traumatized youth, identified based on their personal experiences. The review focuses on two types of intervention: 1) art-based programs where arts engagement are considered a type of therapy, and 2) arts therapy programs where arts approaches are part of a therapeutic process.

The review does not find clear evidence on the outcomes of arts interventions for these categories of youth in the literature, because of methodological deficiencies such as small sample sizes, lack of comparison groups, short follow-up periods, and reliance on self-reported measures. They also note that studies of programs with multiple components do not isolate the effects of each component, meaning that there is no evidence on the outcome of the arts element specifically. They conclude that more research is needed to understand the the potential impacts of these interventions, and to understand differences between the impacts of interventions using different arts disciplines.

The report does note that arts participation has been found to be associated with strong social and emotional skills among youth generally (Menzer, 2016), and that there are theoretical foundations for the efficacy of such interventions. Cognitive behavioral theory promotes changing dysfunctional beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors by helping people change the way they think. The reflective nature of many arts based approaches is well suited to this kind of therapy. Positive Youth Development theory focuses on developing the positive assets of youth by providing opportunities for pro-social involvement, such as arts programs with a social element. Additionally, multiple theoretical frameworks support the use of arts therapies with traumatized children.

The report concludes with a summary of a select number of arts-based programs that have demonstrated positive impacts on youth, including Reading for Life, Project Venture, and Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS).

What I think about it: The authors of this review provide a useful summary of the theory and practice surrounding arts-based programs and therapies for these specific categories of youth, as well as a clear summary of the available evidence and its limitations. In spite of a lack of conclusive evidence, this research provides a good overview of how such programs are theorized to work. The review would benefit from a clearer explanation of how works were identified and included in the review, in order to provide more context for the findings.

What it all means: The positive outcomes noted in individual programs (even with the methodological problems cited), as well as the strong theoretical basis of such programs, points towards the usefulness of further research aimed at identifying specific outcomes of arts programs for at-risk, justice-involved, and traumatized youth. Such research could also help isolate the characteristics of effective programs. This knowledge could both inform program design, and help to justify spending on such programs in the future.

• Singing improves mental health and subjective wellbeing (i.e., perceived quality of life)
• Taking dance classes bolsters cognition and motor skills, and even lessens the likelihood of developing dementia later in life
• Playing a musical instrument has myriad positive effects, including dementia risk reduction
• Visual arts practice generates increases in social engagement, psychological health and self-esteem

Just how the arts benefit society is one of the most studied topics in arts research, to the extent that multiple literature reviews, most notably the RAND Corporation’s decade-old landmark Gifts of the Muse, have sought to compile our collective knowledge on the subject. In recent years, several important initiatives and publications have added to this evidence base, including the final report earlier this year from the UK-based Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Cultural Value Project and National Endowment for the Arts’s 2011 literature review on the arts and human development. Over the past few months, Createquity has been reviewing these and other publications with an eye toward creating a continually-updated catalogue of demonstrated impacts for arts activities. What are all of the ways in which the arts contribute to or detract from wellbeing, and how strong is the evidence supporting each of those claims?

Our review of the literature addressing these questions yielded a surprising result: the most compelling evidence of the value of the arts revolves around improving the lives of older adults. Better understanding the relationship between the arts and aging may help to identify areas for improvement in future research into wellbeing, as well as opportunities for investing in the quality of life of older individuals.

Painter — photo by Flickr user M-n-M

The global population is aging in unprecedented numbers and living longer than ever. Between 1980 and 2010, a period marking most of millennials’ present lifetimes, the number of U.S. centenarians increased by nearly two-thirds! Longer lifespans bring immediate implications for many and eventual implications for us all, if we’re lucky. While extending the so-called golden years can be a blessing, challenges include deteriorating health, social isolation, loss of loved ones, and life transitions.

Fortunately, research shows that arts-related interventions can help (in some cases, more so than traditional Western medicine). In particular, there is substantial causal evidence that participatory arts activities help to maintain the health and quality of life of older adults. These benefits, detailed below, include improvements in cognitive and tactile abilities, subjective wellbeing, and dementia risk reduction (although the effects on managing dementia are less clear).

Jamming and Grooving Towards Better Health

The literature on the effects of participatory arts engagement within aging populations is significant not only for the breadth of demonstrated benefits to older adults, but also the relatively high quality of evidence supporting these claims.

Most of the literature we encountered involved making music, although a number were focused on dance. Music and movement activities (playing instruments, singing, dancing) have been shown to improve mental and physical health among older adults. In a randomized controlled trial of 212 British adults over the age of 60, those who participated in weekly singing groups over three months were found to have had improved mental health (decreased anxiety and depression) compared to those who didn’t. These health effects were mostly sustained over a period of at least three months after the weekly singing ended. By contrast, the positive effects of instrument playing do not always persist over the longer term following participation, unless participants have trained or practiced over an extended period of their lives. This might explain why lifelong engagement with music, particularly playing an instrument, is correlated with improved memory among older adults ─ and why some older musicians, like Herbie Hancock at a solid 76, still perform with as much gusto now as they did in their prime. Despite a smaller sample size, another randomized controlled trial of 35 adults aged 60 and over suggested health benefits of dance for older adults. Those who took weekly dance classes over a six-month period showed improved cognition and attention, posture and balance, and hand/motor skills like steadiness and aim in comparison to the control group.

Other research points to the role of the arts in improving overall quality of life for older adults more generally, such as attitudes toward social life. For example, an evaluation of a different, yearlong weekly singing program for adults aged 60 and over revealed marked improvements in emotional wellbeing, especially for those who had been widowed. A mixed-methods study of the effects of painting lessons among older adults in the same age range documented similar improvements in both mental health and social wellbeing. After having participated in these professionally conducted lessons, participants noted increases in social engagement, their sense of belonging, and self awareness and understanding. Likewise, a randomized controlled trial of 50 older adults who participated in 12 visual art sessions over a month showed improvements in self-esteem and anxiety reduction. No wonder your grandmother was always in a good mood after watercoloring class, treating you to ice cream when you picked her up!

Doses of Art to Stay Lucid?

Every 66 seconds, an American develops Alzheimer’s disease. It is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, and kills more people than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined. As the population ages, millions will be affected: the number of Americans with the disease will double between 2015 and 2050. With soaring diagnoses come soaring costs ─ financial, emotional, and social ─ for patients and their caregivers. Establishment of accessible and cost-effective methods of delaying Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia-related illnesses is crucial.

A 21-year longitudinal study of 469 older adults aged 75 and over published in 2003 found that playing an instrument, reading, and playing board games were strongly associated with lower incidence of dementia. In fact, those who scored in the highest third on the study’s cognitive-activity scale had a 63 percent lower risk of dementia than those in the lowest third. Dancing was the only physical activity to show similar effects.

Arts engagement also seems to benefit older adults who already have dementia, providing improved communication, cognitive function, self-esteem and social participation. TimeSlips, a creative storytelling program for people with dementia, appears to promote engagement, alertness and social interaction among participating adults, as well as improved attitudes among caregivers towards their patients. On the other hand, a 2013 report from the National Endowment for the Arts cites a review of 24 studies that presents a more mixed picture of the evidence, with music interventions leading to both positive and negative outcomes for individuals in severe stages of dementia-related illness. It’s also important to note that methodological challenges abound in this area of research, including confounding external factors related to social context, interrelated variables, and inconsistent outcome measures, all of which makes drawing firm conclusions difficult.

In fact, a separate literature review by Tony Noice et al. notes similar shortcomings in a broader set of research on participatory arts for older adults. As a general rule, research on the benefits of the arts lags behind the level of rigor frequently encountered in the broader universe of scientific research. So while the evidence described above is quite strong by arts research standards, it nevertheless has limitations. Other opportunities for improvement, according to Noice et al., include introducing more standardized assessment of interventions across art forms and measuring effects over a longer period of time. Though the work to date has been promising, until studies on the effectiveness of arts interventions for older adults more consistently meet rigorous standards, their ability to shape perception of the value of such programs will remain limited.

Music has powers — photo by Flickr user Jinx McCombs

As mentioned earlier, we discovered this wealth of literature on arts and aging as part of a larger inquiry into the benefits of the arts in general. That inquiry, in turn, extends a longer-term initiative on Createquity’s part to reconcile the benefits of arts and culture with broader theories of wellbeing (or quality of life), such as the capability approach. Our next article will explore some of the other areas of benefit that have been claimed for arts participation, along with an assessment of the evidence backing up those claims.

In the meantime, rest assured knowing the older people in your life who participate in the arts are not just pursuing a silly pastime. For some, it might just be the key to a worry-free life or a still-taut mind ─ all the more reason to encourage them to channel their inner Aretha, Baryshnikov, or Picasso.