Arts in Education, Impact and Inequalities

This entry reviews arts education research that describes the impact of multiple forms of arts learning on students. Involvement in the arts across a wide range of artistic domains is shown to be positively associated with cognitive, social, and personal gains for learners, although there is a scarcity of causal arts education research in the literature. Inequalities in arts learning opportunities and outcomes for students in the United States are also examined. Achievement gaps in arts learning levels are identified by factors such as race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status (SES), gender, and geographic location. Differential levels of arts participation are also observed: Low-SES students are less involved in arts learning on average than their high-SES peers—although arts learning for both groups is positively associated with higher learning ...