This article discusses the use of hand-clapping games and dances in the music classroom. In addition to their use for teaching music skills and concepts, these games can be quite useful for making cross-disciplinary connections to reinforce the eighth and ninth National Standards for Music Education (Standard 8: understanding relationships between…

This report provides selected national data on the status of arts education in public elementary and secondary schools. The findings are based on information collected through a set of seven surveys. Using its Fast Response Survey System (FRSS), the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the Institute of Education Sciences (IES)…

The self-efficacy beliefs teachers hold about their ability to teach subjects shapes their competence in teaching. Teacher self-efficacy is defined as teacher beliefs in their ability to perform a teaching task. If teachers have strong teacher self-efficacy in the teaching of arts education, they are more likely to incorporate arts in the…

Courses in the arts develop skills specific to the discipline. Research also suggests that the arts contribute to enhanced attentiveness, engagement in school, communication skills, and critical and divergent thinking. Other studies point out benefits for at-risk students in reducing negative outcomes such as dropout and crime rates. Studies…

This 21st Century Skills Map is the result of hundreds of hours of research, development and feedback from educators and business leaders across the nation. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has issued this map for the core subject of the Arts.

This paper examines and reports on beginning generalist teacher self-efficacy, which Bandura (1997) suggests plays an important part in student outcomes. In 2008, 201 beginning generalist teachers throughout the state of Queensland, Australia, participated in a study that aimed to provide a snapshot of current perceptions towards support in…

These tables supplement the publication Arts Education in Public Elementary and Secondary schools: 1999-2000 and 2009-10 (NCES 2012-014). The data are from a total of seven surveys that were administered during the 2009-10 school year. At the elementary school level, the study includes a survey of school principals and three teacher-level surveys,…

The Afterschool Alliance and MetLife Foundation are proud to celebrate a fifth round of the MetLife Foundation Afterschool Innovator Awards. For the past five years, we have collaborated to highlight the work of quality afterschool programs that support children, families and communities across the nation. This compendium is a compilation of four…

"The performing Arts are reflections of ourselves!" This document was initiated in 2004 and completed by 2005 as part of a research paper with the help of the students and some members of staff from the St. Maarten Academy. There is a need for programs such as this within the Caribbean schools. Unfortunately the arts continue to lack the…

This paper details aspects of a research project that explored nineteen Australian primary (elementary) schoolteachers' perspectives of Creative Arts education. The study investigated the participants' personal Arts experiences and training, as well as their views of Arts pedagogy. In depth interviews with the participants highlighted the…

Student access to arts education and the quality of such instruction in the nation's public schools continue to be of concern to policymakers, educators, and families. Specifically, research has focused on questions such as: To what extent do students receive instruction in the arts? Under what conditions is this instruction provided? What is the…

Schools that bring in teaching artists often look beyond their school walls--to other sources of funding and for collaborative partnerships--to work with teaching artists from the community. For the teaching artist with an expansive vision and a willingness to try new approaches, opportunities may be opening up beyond the typical…

State and national accountability initiatives are forcing educational administrators to seek curricular interventions that will yield the greatest improvement in students' academic performance in the least amount of time. Though volumes of documentation regarding the value of the arts in education line the shelves of professional libraries and…

In past years, teachers without professional training in the arts have often been able to avail themselves of summer institutes that introduced them to specific works of art and followed up with artists in the classroom, performance, or trips to an art museum. But what happens when such support is no longer available and teachers have to function…

In this article, the author introduces the Beijing Contemporary Music Institute where more than 3,000 undergraduates study music and dance. In a country where most music departments and conservatories are dedicated to teaching classical Chinese and Western music, the institute is breaking new ground. The college, which opened in 1993 with just 100…