Stitching together the threads: A cross-disciplinary literature review on youth arts and well-being

“Many different disciplinary fields—medical, psychological, educational, and others—integrate the arts into their work with youth. But each field develops, researches, and publishes their approaches in silos. This literature review developed by RAND reviews a fragmented research base to explore how arts engagement promotes the well-being of youth. Through analysis of existing research literature and insights from leaders in the field, the report establishes definitions of youth well-being. It also examines the specific ways that participating in arts activities might promote a young person’s well-being and how one might go about measuring this type of arts engagement.

The RAND team identifies five complex and interrelated “mechanisms,” or ways of promoting well-being through arts engagement. These mechanisms could be used to develop a youth arts engagement framework. They include employing the arts with young people as a means for: (1) building agency to make positive social change, (2) promoting health and wellness, (3) encouraging self-expression, (4) creating social connections and community, (5) developing a range of skills such as public speaking, critical and creative thinking.

The study found that these mechanisms contribute to nine different aspects of youth well-being, including:

(1) academic and practical competencies
(2) productivity and employability
(3) cultural and spiritual beliefs and values
(4) economic stability
(5) civic engagement and community safety
(6) connectedness to others and their environment
(7) positive state of mind
(8) physical health
(9) feelings of inclusion and justice

While the review identified this potential starting point for a framework, researchers note that the explicit relationship between arts mechanisms and youth well-being was limited. The researchers raise seven opportunities to address gaps in the literature to better understand how arts engagement promotes well-being for young people. These include:

• • Building cross-disciplinary relationships to better research the connection between arts engagement and youth well-being
  • Improving partnerships between the arts and community organizers to help understand how arts engagement can build agency to promote positive social change
  • Bringing together practitioners and researchers to study how  the arts promote well-being and encourage more holistic approaches to youth development
  • Defining and testing youth-led arts engagement approaches to determine outcomes of youth leadership on well-being
  • Uniting academic institutions, arts organizations, and policy-focused organizations to better understand the association between arts participation and feelings of inclusion
  • Documenting how to ensure that arts opportunities are available for all youth and the ways in which the arts help shape communities that equitably help youth to thrive
  • Developing innovative study designs and measures to quantify the impact of the arts”