Academic Benefits of Middle School Music Enrollment Among Low-Income, Ethnically Diverse Youth

• In Event: Using Large-Scale Longitudinal Data to Understand Music Student Outcomes in Diverse School Contexts

Abstract

Researchers using quasi-experimental designs to examine outcomes associated with music must control for pre-existing differences between those who do and do not select into musical experiences. Our earlier work found considerable selection differences between those who did and did not enroll in arts elective courses (for an any-arts composite, Winsler et al., 2019; for music, Alegrado & Winsler, 2019) in middle school (6th-8th grade): ethnicity, gender, poverty and disability status, English proficiency, school readiness skills at age 4, and prior (5th grade) academic competence. Importantly, controlling statistically for all selection effects, we found that taking arts elective courses was associated with better academic outcomes later in middle school (Winsler et al., 2019). Here we report outcome results for students who took specifically music elective courses in middle school (rather than an any-arts composite).

Our data come from the longitudinal Miami School Readiness Project, involving low-income (80% free/reduced lunch), ethnically diverse (29% Black, 63% Hispanic, 7% White/Other, 1% Asian) students (n = 33,391) who received childcare subsidies or attended public school pre-K programs at age four in Miami, Florida. Students have been followed throughout middle school to see who took a music elective course (band, chorus, guitar, orchestra, or other) in 6th, 7th, and/or 8th grade during the 2009-2016 academic years.

Multivariate regression analyses (Table 2) controlling for all selection effects (Table 1) found that students enrolled in a music elective had better grades, and math and reading test scores compared to their non-music-enrolled peers the year of and the year after enrollment. Interestingly, higher 6th grade retention rates were seen among specifically 6th grade music takers. In 8th grade, music students were significantly less likely to be suspended from school. Additional analyses to be presented at the conference will disaggregate results by each form of music (band, orchestra, chorus, guitar).

Authors

• Alenamie Alegrado, George Mason University
  Presenting Author

• Adam Winsler, George Mason University
  Non-Presenting Author