Victoria Isaac, “Arts Education and Black and Latinx Student Achievement: Evidence from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009”
Mentor: Marcus Britton, Sociology

Previous studies examine quantitative connections between arts education and academic achievement, utilizing standardized test scores as measures of student performance. While the benefits of the arts for all students net of family socioeconomic status and school location have been highlighted, more research is needed to examine its effects on racially and ethnically marginalized populations, specifically Black and Latinx students. Acknowledging the Eurocentric tendencies of  U.S. educational institutions, we draw on cultural citizenship and equity pedagogy theories to understand how arts education may facilitate a sense of belonging, foster academically-oriented identities, and create school environments that validate the cultures of nonwhite students. Utilizing data from the National Center for Education Statistics’ High School Longitudinal Study of 2009, we test the hypothesis that Black and Latinx high school students who complete arts coursework achieve higher overall grade point averages (GPAs) and benefit from decreased dropout rates in comparison to Black and Latinx students who do not, thus reducing racial disparities in academic outcomes. Consistent with this hypothesis, descriptive statistics show that arts coursework associates with greater increases in GPA and greater decreases in dropout rates for Black and Latinx students compared to students from other racial/ethnic backgrounds. Regression models exhibit that more research is needed to determine if the number of semesters in which a student completes arts coursework has an effect on the presence of statistically significant outcomes net of controls.