Professor Pat Thomson, CLA’s Senior Evidence Associate, examines recent research from the US on the impact of dance exposure on children’s interests and development and examines findings which reveal that children students with lower prior arts exposure show the greatest gains – a reminder that arts education investment can be most valuable for underserved students and where resources are typically most scarce.
Bowen, Daniel H. & Kisida, Brian (07 Nov 2024): You make me feel like dancing: the effects of dance exposure on children’s cultural interests and social-emotional development, Arts Education Policy Review, DOI: 10.1080/10632913.2024.2424572
The researchers conducted a randomised controlled trial examining the Houston Ballet’s X3: Explore Extend, Excel! programme, an initiative serving disadvantaged (Title1) primary schools. The programme operates as a substitute for regular physical education classes, with professionally trained teaching artists and musicians visiting school campuses for 15 sessions over two to four months, culminating in a community performance.
The study’s experimental design was ethically motivated. Rather than comparing students who received the programme against those who did not, the researchers randomly assigned the timing of survey administration. Some students completed outcome surveys before participating in the programme (control group), while others completed them after participation (treatment group). This approach preserved the internal validity of findings while ensuring all students eventually received dance instruction.
The final sample was 451 elementary students from five disadvantaged schools, with 99% eligible for free lunch and with an overall student mix of 79% Hispanic, 15% Black or African American, 3% White, and 3% Asian students. School principals selected either their third or fourth grade classes to participate (age 8-9 and 9-10), creating a focused age range for analysis.
The researchers measured three key outcomes through validated surveys. Dance enthusiasm captured students’ enjoyment, interest, and self-assessment of dancing ability. Self-efficacy measured students’ beliefs about their capacity to achieve goals and meet learning objectives. School connectedness assessed students’ sense of belonging and peer relationships within their school environment.
Additionally, the study examined students’ prior arts and cultural engagement through questions about previous participation in dance lessons, music instruction, theatre, museum visits, and cultural performances. This background information proved crucial for understanding how the programme affected different student populations.
A dance enthusiasm effect
Participation in the dance programme increased students’ enthusiasm for dance by 0.30 standard deviations and improved their sense of self-efficacy by 0.17 standard deviations. These effect sizes represent meaningful improvements that educators could observe in their classrooms. The dance enthusiasm effect appeared primarily driven by increases in students’ enjoyment of dance and their self-assessments of dancing ability. This result suggests that the programme successfully cultivated genuine interest in dance as an art form while building students’ confidence in their own capabilities.
The study’s findings about which students benefited most from the programme are perhaps the most significant for arts educators.
- Students with lower levels of prior arts and cultural exposure experienced the greatest benefits. These students not only showed significant improvements in self-efficacy but also demonstrated increased school connectedness, an effect not observed in the full sample. This finding supports theories of cultural mobility, suggesting that schools can indeed serve as vehicles for providing cultural capital to students who might not otherwise access such experiences.
- Male students, who initially showed lower enthusiasm for dance, demonstrated positive effects nearly twice the magnitude of female students.
- Students with higher levels of prior arts exposure showed significant improvements in dance enthusiasm but did not demonstrate the same gains in self-efficacy or school connectedness.
This pattern suggests that the programme’s most profound impacts occur among students with the greatest initial need.
Implications for Arts education policy and practice
The study provides empirical support for the claim that dance education offers both intrinsic value in developing cultural interests and instrumental benefits in supporting social-emotional development. The connection between increased dance enthusiasm and improved self-efficacy suggests that success in arts learning can build general confidence in students’ abilities to achieve goals. The programme’s emphasis on practice, collaboration, teamwork, and positive feedback appeared instrumental in promoting self-efficacy. Teaching artists consistently stressed that making mistakes and additional practice were part of the learning process, creating supportive environments where students became less discouraged and more confident over time.
For schools serving predominantly low-income and minority students, the study suggests that dance programmes can play a meaningful role in addressing cultural capital disparities. The finding that students with lower prior arts exposure showed the greatest gains indicates that such programmes may be most valuable precisely where arts resources are typically most scarce.
This research also contributes to a growing body of evidence supporting arts education’s role in student development. The ethical experimental design allows educators to feel confident that the observed benefits directly resulted from dance participation rather than other factors. The study also addresses ongoing debates about schools’ capacity to serve as mechanisms for cultural capital acquisition, suggesting that well-designed school programmes can indeed provide meaningful cultural experiences that may benefit students throughout their lives.
