Highlights from Key US National Research on Arts Education

Summaries of the following research reports are available below:

• Champions of Change
• Review of Theatre for Young People
• Playing a Part - Impact of Youth Theatre on Young People
• Coming Up Taller

The research reports listed below examine a range of issues affecting practice and the nature of the outcomes generated through the arts for young people.  This information can increase your knowledge of arts practice for young people, provide you with new information or professional development contacts and networks, or offer new ways of talking about the importance of the arts for young people.

CHAMPIONS OF CHANGE (1999)
Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning provides new and important
findings on actual learning experiences involving the arts. The report which follows presents these research findings, complete with ground-breaking quantitative and qualitative data and analysis, as articulated by leading American educational researchers. These researchers investigated the content, process, and results of learning in and through the arts. Perhaps what makes their findings so significant is that they all address ways that educational goals may be realized though enhanced arts learning. As the researchers discovered, learning in the arts can not only impact how young people learn to think, but also how they feel and behave.  The research revealed that the arts

• reach students who are not otherwise being reached
• reach students in ways that they are not otherwise being reached
• connect students to themselves and each other
• transform the environment for learning
• provide learning opportunities for the adults in the lives of young people
• provide new challenges for those students already considered successful
• connect learning experiences to the world of real work
• enable young people to have direct involvement with the arts and artists
• require significant staff development
• support extended engagement in the artistic process

To read the full report go to Champions of Change, a report produced by the national Arts Education Partnership, the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, the GE Fund, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

REVIEW OF THEATRE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE (2003)
The key purpose of this review is to provide practical recommendations indicating how funding bodies could make better use of their limited resources to encourage better artistic experiences for young people.  The report provides a brief mapping of government funded theatres for young people in Australia containing a summary of their resource base, artistic outputs, audiences reached, policies, philosophies and views on best practice etc.

• Findings included that, at its best, this field of work has developed a degree of sophistication which could not be sustained other than as a specialist artistic discipline.
  
• There is a perception that the sector was regarded as a ‘stepping stone’ to real theatre work [for adult audiences].
  
• The lack of customized training [through tertiary and vocational education courses] for theatre for young people had limited the availability of practitioners with an awareness and confidence in communicating with children [through theatre].
  
• Youth focused festivals play an important role in presenting and raising profile of the theatre for young people sector, however many of the theatre for young people companies experience difficulty securing press reviews and informed media coverage.
  
• It was evident that the most admired companies share a spirit of exploration and evolution in the ways in which they engage young people in the development and evaluation of the work.
  
• There is a growing desire for the practice to be grounded in sound learning principles, especially where the work is targeted at children, and a related desire to understand young audience perceptions and reception of the work
  
• There was no substance to the proposition that theatre for young audiences is cheaper to produce [than theatre for adult audiences]
  
• As a proportion of total turnover the TYP companies’ investment in production costs averaged 22 per cent over the period [of the review], compared to 12 per cent for a comparable group of companies [producing work for adult audiences].
  
• The companies reported significant real increases in salaries and fees (23 per cent) and direct program or production costs (28 per cent) from 1997 to 2002 [with little or no growth in core funding].
  
• Some companies reported negative cash reserves and very poor working capital with even some well-established companies unable to pay their core staff year-round.

Recommendations from the review are clustered into three areas:

• Developing the audience and the market
  
• Enhancing the strengths of the sector
  
• Forging partnerships with education

Copy of report available from www.ozco.gov.au/council_priorities/young_people/

PLAYING A PART (2003)
A study of the impact of youth theatre on the personal, social and political development of young people.

This study was carried out over an 18 month period from July 2001 to December 2002, making contact with more than 300 young people and 700 youth theatres across England.  Youth theatres describe a variety of organisations engaging young people in theatre related activities, outside of formal education.

The research generated eight key research findings relating to the impact of youth theatre on young people’s personal, social and political development.

1 Growing up in a risk society – young people’s transitions into adulthood are uncertain, complex and risky in the current social and economic climate.

• Young people’s transitions have become more complex, uncertain and risky in the current social and economic climate
  
• Young people’s lives are more likely to be shaped by circumstances individual to them than traditional social patterns.  The development of personal identity, personal skills and resources and access to positive personal experiences can be important assets to young people engaged in creating their own routes into adulthood.
  
• Delayed entry into the labour market means that opportunities to take on independent and responsible roles in society are limited for many young people
  
• Young people seek opportunities to develop an autonomous identity away from school and home.  Peer groups and informal settings tend to offer more opportunities for participation and independence than formal/institutional settings.  Where opportunities are limited elsewhere, some young people may engage in risky behaviour as a way of asserting independence and autonomy
  
• Research has identified a number of factors that protect and support young people to manage risk successfully, including: positive relationships with peers and adults, supportive relationships outside the home, access to community resources, good interpersonal and communications skills.  The agency of the individual – an ability to adapt to and effect different situations – has also been identified as a key factor protecting young people from risk and ensuring their successful transition to adulthood. Opportunities to develop confidence and self esteem can promote a young person’s ability to use their own initiative and agency

2 In between school and home – youth theatre provides an informal and supportive context for personal and social development

• Attending youth theatre provides young people with the means of developing an identity and positive relationships independent from home and school.  Youth theatre provides opportunities to develop supportive relationships with adults outside of the more formal or pressured environments of school and home
  
• Youth theatre can provide an informal network of support for young people in trouble.  Access to a network of extra support – outside of home and school- can have important protective functions, supporting young people’s secure transitions into adulthood
  
• Young people emphasise the importance of the voluntary and purposeful nature of youth theatre – that they choose to take part in a specific activity increases commitment and creates a more positive environment for the development of relationships
  
• Many young people experience youth theatre as somewhere they feel known, accepted and supported.  Young people emphasise the importance of a youth theatre culture that promotes acceptance, tolerance equality and team work
  
• The accounts of young people suggest that youth theatre can offer more significant opportunities for personal and social development than formal education.  Taking part in activities outside of school and home provide young people with opportunities to develop personal identity, access networks of support and to participate in a style and setting – with their own peers and in their own time – relevant to young people’s need for independence and autonomy

3 You use your own imagination – youth theatre develops young people’s ability to be agents in their own development

• Young People’s agency – ability to think independently and confidence to act on their own abilities – has been identified as a key factor supporting their development in a context that does not guarantee certain or structured pathways
  
• Young people’s energy and agency is the main asset of youth theatre.  Young people value opportunities to take part in creative processes with peers and adults that utilise their abilities, ideas and skills.  Youth theatre workers identify ‘willingness to hand over responsibility to young people’ (as well as preparing them for taking on responsibility) as a key aspect of good practice in youth theatre
  
• Young people identify a vast array of personal and social skills and resources that they feel are developed by youth theatre, especially the opportunity to develop confidence and self esteem.  These personal skills and positive life experiences are extremely important, especially in a current social context where individual identity, abilities and personal resources are identified with successful transitions to adulthood

4 ‘Taking a risk’ -  youth theatre provides a safe context for young people to take risks and responsibility and assert their independence

• Theories of young people’s transitions suggest that young people need opportunities to assert their independence, explore capabilities and take risks.  The notion of providing ‘safe space’ within which young people can take risks emerged very strongly from the accounts of youth theatre workers.  Youth theatre workers frequently describe taking measured risks in their work to challenge and stretch young people
  
• Young people experiencing social exclusion may take part in risky activities because opportunities to assert independence in other ways are limited.  Youth theatre workers that operate in deprived areas or with disadvantaged young people testify to the power of participatory theatre to engage ‘hard to reach’ young people
  
• Youth theatre may have an important role to play in providing opportunities to succeed to young people who are underachieving in other areas of their life.  Experiences of participation, recognition and success through theatre may divert some young people from more negative risk taking activity and facilitate re-engagement with other learning and development opportunities

5 ‘Playing me’ – youth theatre provides opportunities to explore self and experiment with personal identity in a supportive setting

• Youth theatre offers young people an opportunity to ‘stand out’ within a supportive peer setting.  In youth theatre young people develop a sense of self that is rooted in having a visible and congruent role to play in a group.  A stable personal identity – a sense of confidence in who you are – can be an important asset to young people negotiating and renegotiating their roles in the wider social world
  
• In youth theatre, the only role a young person is assigned is that of ‘performer’.  For young people who experience low status or negative self images, this can provide the freedom to ‘reinvent’ themselves – enhance their self image and raise their status within a group of peers or the wider community
  
• The process of making theatre invites young people to explore feelings, thoughts, experiences, attitudes and behaviour that they may be inhibited from doing in a day to day setting.  Some young people report that this encourages them to express thoughts and feelings more confidently in other contexts
  
• Some young people report that taking part in youth theatre has ‘calmed me down’. Channeling feelings, energy and anxiety through performance and other youth theatre activity helps young people learn how to cope with and control their feelings and express themselves more effectively in a range of contexts

6 ‘Playing a part in the world of work’ – youth theatre provides opportunities to take responsibility in work-like contexts and develop a range of pre-vocational skills

• High quality youth theatres provide work-like, professional environments that impose high expectations and demand high levels of self motivation and commitment from young people
  
• Theories of young people’s transitions to adulthood suggest that young people experience a delayed entry into the labour market and [consequently] benefit from opportunities to take on responsibility and meet challenges that they would face as a matter of course in the work place
  
• Youth theatre provides young people with a structure within which they are required to commit, turn up, be prepared, perform, work with a range of other people, participate, give and take ideas, respond to challenge, take risks, make decisions and contribute on a consistent basis

7 ‘Playing a part in the wider world’ – taking part in youth theatre encourages young people to participate more fully in their communities and consider the consequences of the roles they choose to play in the wider world.

• Taking part in plays that explore issues and experiences relevant to their own lives encourages young people to understand the consequences of the various roles they choose to play out in the wider community
  
• Exploring dramatic material widens young people’s frame of reference and provides new perspectives and knowledge about themselves, their community and the wider world.  Playing a part in a play brings young people face to face with personal, moral, political and social issues and dilemmas – helping them develop opinions and refine their personal philosophies, develop empathy for other people and explore issues from a variety of perspectives
  
• Young people welcome opportunities to explore a wide range of subject matter and confront difficult, sensitive, or controversial issues through theatre
  
• Some youth theatres have access and inclusion policies that allow young people to mix with other young people from a wide variety of backgrounds.  Working with people with a range of life ex
  
• Some youth theatres have access and inclusion policies that allow young people to mix with other young people from a wide variety of backgrounds.  Working with people with a range of life experiences and abilities, from different social and cultural backgrounds also serves to broaden young people’s awareness of the world

8 ‘Performing many parts’ – the importance of performance and the creative process to young people’s personal and social development

• Young people suggest that ‘performances’ in youth theatre involve tangible risks.  Participating in successful rehearsal processes and public performances help young people develop confidence, skills and personal resources to perform in a wide range of contexts
  
• Youth theatre happens in liminal space – a place/time outside of normal routines where young people can shed their ascribes roles and take on new ones – experiment with different ways of playing a role in creative and social process.  In youth theatre, a young person is free to learn, develop, invent and reinvent themselves
  
• Theatre is a form that lends itself to personal and social development – all drama is based on people involved in situations of conflict and change.  As such, youth theatre is a meeting of a transitional art form with a social group in transitional moment. 

Youth theatre and the creative process – provide a stable context and structure that supports and encourages young people to take performance risks within specific youth theatre projects, the youth theatre organisation and wider social contexts.  Youth theatre is a place where young people are protected and develop important personal and social skills and resources at the same time as confronting the uncertainty and risk involved in making transitions to adulthood

Playing a Part was commissioned by the National Association of Youth Theatres, Centre for Applied Research and Arts Council of England.  This report is available from the National Association of YouthTheatres.  www.nayt.org.uk/playingapart/index.htm

COMING UP TALLER (2001)
This report describes how local artists and educators help turn around the lives of young people and identifies the common characteristics of effective arts and humanities programs.  Program Profiles describe more than 200 after school, weekend and summer programs contained in the report.  The President’s Committee for the Arts and Humanities, with Americans for the Arts, produced this report to identify community programs in the arts and humanities that reach at-risk children and youth to describe the principles and practices that make these programs effective.

Coming Up Taller calls attention to the variety and vitality of promising arts and humanities programs for children and youth.  It also describes common characteristics that these programs share.

Perhaps the most distinguishing aspect of these programs is their ability to take full advantage of the capacity for the arts and the humanities to engage students.  Beginning with this engagement, programs impart new skills and encourage new perspectives that begin to transform the lives of at-risk children and youth.

Community arts and humanities programs provide crucial ‘building blocks’ for children’s healthy development. 
These programs:

• Create safe places for children and youth where they can develop constructive relationships with their peers
• Offer small classes with opportunities for youth to develop close, interactive relationships with adults
• Place a premium on giving youth a chance to succeed as a way to build their sense of worth and achievement
• Use innovative teaching strategies such as hands-on learning, apprenticeships and technology, often giving youth concrete job skills
• Emphasise excellence and expose children to quality staff and programming
• Build on what youth value and understand and encourage voluntary participation
• Establish clear expectations and reward progress
• Maintain sustained, regular programs upon which children can count and provide youth with opportunities to be valued community members

Read the full report www.cominguptaller.org/report_pp.html