Policy P

Visual and Performing Arts Fieldtrips: K-8

I Intro A Topic/Problem: 1. School fieldtrips are viewed as central to school missions (Greene et al. 2014)

2. School Fieldtrips, especially cultural-based ones, are decreasing in number and frequency (Green et al., 2014)

B Why it is the topic important 1 Since 2014, museums have provided more than 750,000 museum visits for low-

income students (American Alliance of Museums, 2020) 2 Without school-based fieldtrips, children of less privileged families less likely to

be exposed to forms of cultural capital, such as trips to art museums (Garcia, 2015)

3. Cultural fieldtrips contribute to children’s positive cognitive and social development (Deng, 2017)

C Brief description of the policy proposed to address the issue/problem 1. Policy proposes requiring public K-8 schools to take children on at least one

cultural fieldtrip per year, 2. Starting in Kindergarten and ending in 8th grade 3. By 8th grade, every child will have been to two art museums, two dance

performances, two theatrical productions, and two classical music concerts D over-view of what the paper will do and cover This paper will review the extant of children’s experience of school-based fieldtrips

and participation in cultural activities in the visual and performing arts. It will then provide a critical analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of existing policy. Next, the paper will review current research on a) how children develop cultural capital; and (b) the developmental advantages of exposure to the visual and performing arts. The paper will then describe a detailed proposal for an evidence-based visual and performing arts school fieldtrip policy, describe the stated goals of the policy, and indicate how the effectiveness of the policy will be evaluated. The paper will conclude with a discussion of how this policy promotes children’s well-being and meets the criteria of the United Nations Children’s Rights Convention.

II Stats that show the current state with respect to your policy/need for the policy A Statistics

1 96% of Americans value museums and believe that museums are important and need more funding (American Association of Museums, 2020)

2 In the last six years, museums have served over 750,000 low-income students have provided more than two billion annually in education based activities (American Association of Museums, 2020), but museums are reporting serving fewer students per year (Brookings Institute, 2018

3 In 2011/2012, over 50% of school administrators reported eliminating school fieldtrips, and in 2015/2016, 30% of school administrators reported eliminating school fieldtrips and only 12% reporting restoring school fieldtrips to pre- recession levels (American Association of School Administrators, 2017).

4 Adult attendance at visual and performing arts venues is increasing but still relatively low: art museums (23.7%); musicals (16.5%): plays (9.4%), classical music (8.6%); Jazz (8.6%); Dance (6.3%); Latin/Spanish/Salsa (5.9%); Ballet (3.1%)

B explanation of how the stats show a need for the policy The public values museums/arts, but schools are ever reducing the number of

fieldtrips they take kids on. Adults are relatively unlikely to take children as leisure activity *whether by preference, financial barriers, or access* and thus, children are less likely to be exposed to the visual and performing arts at a period when they are most likely to benefit from that exposure.

III Existing Policy Review A Visual and Performing Arts Standards (https://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/

documents/vpastandards.pdf 1. Arts promote our creativity while also stimulating our intelligence. Schools

are required to expose children to the visual and performing arts: dance, music, theater, and visual arts. The visual and performing arts are to be woven into the curriculum as much as possible

2. Strengths: Learn through active participation, read about a range of artists and artforms, engaging in critical analysis, promotes creativity and problem- solving (Walton, 2018)

3. Weaknesses: Standards do not require fieldtrips, do not state extent of exposure, do not help build cultural capital (Greene et al, 2014) or necessarily empower communities (Chiwara, 2016)

B AB 341: School Field Trips – Expenses https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml? bill_id=201720180AB341 1. Rescinds a provision of the CA education that prohibits schools from paying

the expenses of students going on a field trip 2. Strengths: Prevents the exclusion of students who cannot pay/afford to go

(Garcia, 2015) and eliminates the need for schools to forgo fieldtrips because some students would not be able to attend

3. Weaknesses: Does not provide a stream of funding for school fieldtrips; does not specify that at least some of the fieldtrips promote the development of cultural capital (Greene et al. 2014).

C summary of policies; key points; and discussion of scholarly article addressing the issues related to these policies (this article is separate from the lit review)

IV Lit Review: 12 research articles; grouped into subsections of related articles (the number of articles in each subtopic will vary but you need at least two); each article lists, goals, subjects and results; at the end of subsections you will summarize key findings and explain how these finding support your policy – do NOT do this article by article A Inequity/Social and Economic Privilege Yi-Ping and Chin-Chun (2014)

Goals: Examine the connection between social class, values, and children’s engagement in after-school activities and the connection to cultural capital Subjects: 2,126 pairs of students, 51.5% males, and one parent from Taiwan. The participants were first assessed in 7th grade and came from economically and socially diverse families.

Results: (a) Wealthier families more likely to enroll children in after- activities; (b) Parental cultural capital (education, books in home, participation in arts and music) strongly predictive of children’s afterschool activities; Cultural capital influences parenting values and enrollment in activities; children from families with more cultural capital more likely to be enrolled in western music classes (seen as status), in art and calligraphy classes. Sports and computer courses are not related to cultural capital.

Carson, Gerhard, and Hans (2017) Goals: Test the extent to which acquiring transnational cultural capital depends

on families’ cultural capital and child-rearing values Subjects: Qualitative interview with 26 German families of youth ages 15- to 18.

19 of the families sent their child on a year abroad. Results: Parents who sent child abroad had the economic means; part of a parents’ strategy to reproduce their social status, parents have own transnational experience abroad; exposure to cultures that go beyond what learn at school and by learning a foreign language; upper class know more peers who have gone, expected. “Concerted cultivation” – part of the child’s social and cognitive development

Garcia (2015) Goals: analyze how social position influences parents’ leisure activities with

children. Subjects: 610 cohabitating/married economically and ethnically diverse British couples with a child between the ages of 4- and 15. Results: (a) low-income, less educated mothers participate less frequently in out- of-home cultural activities with children; (b) fathers’ participation in out-of-home cultural activities is dependent on mothers’ participation; (c) privileged mothers play an active role in arranging out-of-home cultural activities with their husbands and children, which are typically family-organized activities.

Subtopic 1 Summary Children’s exposure to cultural capital (i.e., arts, music, dance, museums, etc.) is

highly dependent on social and economic class, with wealthier parents or parents with greater social/cultural capital being more likely to value and expose their children to the visual and performing arts. This suggests that if lower income children are not enrolled in a school that takes fieldtrips to cultural organizations, these children face inequity.

B Benefits of Cultural Capital Mikus, Tieben, and Schober, (2020)

Goals: Tests: (1) If cultural capital conversion takes place via its symbolic function, beaux-arts consumption will be associated with higher teacher performance ratings net of children’s objective competencies; (2) if reading behaviour directly stimulates children’s competence development, reading behaviour will be associated with higher competence test scores of children

Subjects: 2,428 German 5th graders; 49% male, economically diverse Results: (a) Beaux Arts consumption defined as: classical concerts, opera and

ballet performances, ii) theatre, and iii) museums or art exhibitions during the last 12 months; (b) more highly-educated parents possess a higher level of cultural capital with respect to beaux-arts consumption as well as frequency of reading; (c) large and positive association between parents’ and children’s beaux-arts consumption and reading frequency; (d) children’s beaux-arts consumption is positively related to their German grade even after controlling for reading scores; (e) Beaux-Arts consumption provides a symbolic boost to academic competence.

Kisida, Greene, and Bowen (2014) Goals: test whether there is cultural mobility; mobility occurs because disadvantaged children can be helped to acquire cultural capital, which compensates for family background characteristics.

Subjects: 80 school groups toured an American Art Museum, and 80 similar school groups who had their tours deferred until spring; 8,239 Children in grades 3- to 12; average = 6th grade; 51% female; 60% white, 18% Latinx, 3% African- American; 19% other; 54% low-income

Results: (a) single tour of a museum increased students’ interest in visiting a museum; (b) students with less prior cultural capital more interested; (c) Effect is

stronger for low-income students; (d) disadvantaged students more interest in engaging with art in general after museum visit; (e ) – 58% of the returnees (those who used the coupon to come back to the museum with their families) were those who received the tour.

Xu and Hampden-Thompson (2012). Goals: to systematically examine perspectives based on cultural reproduction, cultural mobility, and cultural resources and to test whether any identified impacts are practically significant (meaningful). The four models have different predictions about the association between cultural capital and educational performance and whether cultural capital has differential effects on students from low-income versus high-income families

Subjects: International survey of 32 countries; students were, on average, 15- years-old Results: (a) parental status resources have been successfully turned into children’s cultural capital, especially in liberal regimes; (b) in social welfare states (e.g., Denmark, Sweden), cultural mobility is supported; cultural capital have positive and significant effects on reading-, mathematics-, and science- assessment scores; (c) effect of cultural capital on educational performance is similar for students across all status groups; (d) in all states (mediterranean liberal, corporate, and social democracy), cultural capital tends to be reproduced – passing from parent to child, and the benefits are stronger for those with more cultural capital.

Subtopic 2 Summary Cultural capital appears to benefit students academically across a wide range of

subjects. Cultural capital does not appear to directly develop skills, but it provides familiarity and knowledge. It does appear that cultural capital can be promoted in children not exposed to it at home, suggesting that schools which provide fieldtrips to cultural institutions can help to achieve greater equity.

C Children’s Exposure to Visual and Performing Arts Tazi, Vidal, and Stein, (2015)

Goals: explore the extent to which a school-museum collaboration resulted in a bilingual parent-child program promoting school readiness and social inclusion for Latino families.

Subjects: 60 LatinX preschooler and their mothers living in an economically diverse suburban community. Results: Art and culture based activities facilitated development of children’s school readiness skills (observation skills, creativity, critical thinking, vocabulary, and aesthetic appreciation)

Kaufman, Rinehardt, Hine, Wilkinson, Tush, Mead, and Fernandez, (2014). Goals: Test the effects of an intervention (Junior Docent Program) at an art museum on children’s self-concept

Subjects: 176 children, 69 boys/107 girls, ages 7-13; demographics reflect Tampa Florida Results: (a) significant, positive increases in self-concept from pre- to post-test; (b) notable decrease in the Conflict score, suggesting a move to decrease the negative in their lives; (c) improved perceptions of how others view them; (d) increases in confidence in grades and school; (3) students who took their families on the museum tour (relative to those who did not) had the highest self-concept

Akiva, Schunn, and Louw, (2017). Goals: what drives youth attendance at (a) established art museums – fee based

afterschool program; and (b) community youth serving organization – free STEAM programming; what is the role of youth interest, pragmatics, and demographics?

Subjects: (1) local organization = 81 10-year-olds; 70% female; (2) art museum

95 11-year-olds, Results; both groups interest in art and technology; art museum attendees more

interested in art; the STEAM kids had attended fewer art or science programs than the museum kids; the art interested art museum kids – likely to also have attended science/technology programming; STEAM kids more likely to come from neighborhoods with high rates of African American members, high poverty, and without BA/BS degrees (opposite pattern for museum kids); Art museum used city-wide recruiting (STEAM neighborhood specific); interest in art was the strongest driver in participation in museum; museum needs to work on bringing in more diverse groups of children

Greene, Erickson, Watson, and Beck, (2018) Goals: Do children benefit from school fieldtrips to see live theater?

Subjects: 309 PK-8 teachers; 90% Euro-Anglo; 91% female; 70% had an MA

Results; Youth who saw the play had significantly higher scores on measures of: tolerance; content knowledge of the plot; vocabulary; and social perspective taking

Clarke-Vivier and Lee, (2018) Goals: What influences teachers’ engagement in out-of-school fieldtrips? What helps or harms the planning and implementation of the fieldtrips

Subjects: 1500 randomly assigned students to see A Christmas Carol, Hamlet, Around the World in 80 Days, and Peter and the Starcatchers, and Twelfth Night (treatment) or a control group (no performance, or a movie similar to the play); average age = 14; on average 8th and 9th graders; 67% Euro-Anglo; Results; In the previous year, 19% never took their students, 25% once, and 50% two or more times; 65% reported not learning about creating fieldtrips in teacher credential programs; benefits included: academic extensions; authenticity; student engagement, motivation, curiosity, memorable experiences, exposure to the wider world; barriers were logistical planning, funding, transportation, and curriculum;

Kisida, Bowen, and Greene, (2018). Goals: Does participation in a museum education program increase students’ interest in museums?

Subjects: 2,253 K-2nd grade children randomly assigned to participate in an art museum education program (matched control groups were deferred); 48% female; majority Euro-Anglo (60%), 20% LatinX; 45% low income Results; Students in the treatment group developed more positive attitudes towards art; students’ in the treatment group gained more knowledge about art

Subtopic 3 Summary Students gain academically and socially emotionally from cultural fieldtrips; research

suggests students enjoy the fieldtrips and gain motivation and interest in what they experience. These studies support a policy that requires at least one cultural field trip per year.

D Children with Special Needs Deng, (2017).

Goals: Test the impact of a 6-week museum program (six weekly visits focused on a particular topic and included a social story that was designed to help the participants better cope with the novelty of the museum environment through relevant social cues explaining the museum rules and expectations. Each visit included a 45-minute guided gallery tour, a 10-minute break, and an artmaking studio component. The weekly topics included Still Life, Animal Art Texture Collage, Warm and Cool Colors, Lovely Landscapes, Patterns, and Monotype Portraits) on children with Autism

Subjects: 10 children with ASD; children were 8- to-15-years and all were high Functioning; 9 boys; seven Euro-Anglo; 2 African-American, 1 bi-racial

Results: after each lesson, children consistently demonstrated high levels of Knowledge of the art concepts; behaviors (ask questions, respond to questions, requests for self) steadily increased over time; increases in the social responsiveness scale (e.g., reduction in repetitive behavior, increases in motivation and social awareness and social cognition);

Fletcher, Blake, and Shelffo, (2018). Goals: explore ways children with sensory challenges might have an enjoyable experience either with their peers on field trips or during their family museum visits

Subjects: 14 families with children ages 4- to 18 with Autism; Results: sensory guides provided structure; flexibility permitted adjustment for

children’s needs and interests; children stayed longer; children better able to engage in intellectual aspects of the experience

Subtopic 4 Summary Children with special needs can and should enjoy museum trips. Children with

special needs can and do learn from the experience. Museums should have a developed, inclusive curriculum and a design that supports various needs. The proposed policy will require teachers with special education expertise to work with local museums to develop appropriate programming.

V Policy Proposal A detailed proposal (components of the policy linked to the stats (II), the lit review

(III), and existing policy (IV) – this answers who, what, where, when, and how; the why is selected results, stats, or policies from sections II, III, and IV 1 This policy proposes requiring public K-8 schools to take students on at least one

cultural fieldtrip per year. These field trips may serve as a correction for the 30-50% of school administrators who have eliminated field trips from their curriculum due to budget cuts (American Association of School Administrators, 2017)

2 This policy aligns with Common Core Standards for the visual and performing arts, by requiring schools to take children to visual art museums, theatrical productions, music performances, and dance performances, such that by 8th grade students have experienced at least two of each type. This is important because we know that relatively few adults attend these performances (arts.gov), and those that do are more likely to upper class (Garcia, 2015). Moreover, cultural capital is less likely to be something that is mobile; instead it is acquired from parents (Carlson et al., 2017; Mikus & Tieben, 2020; Yi-Ping &Chin-Chun, 2014)

3 Schools will be required to provide adequate transportation, funding, and planning time to teachers to facilitate these annual field trips (Clarke-Vivier, & Lee, 2018).

4. Teachers will be required to explore students’ interests and prior experiences prior to the fieldtrip to maximize children’s capacity to learn and grow from the experience; this includes tying the fieldtrip explicitly into the curriculum (Akiva, Schunn, & Louw, 2017; Kisida et al., 2018; Tazi, Vidal & Stein, 2015).

5. Children will be expected to build on their fieldtrip in subsequent project-based learning opportunities, such that their imaginative and creative thinking is utilized (Fleming, Gibson, Anderson, Martin, & Sudmalis, 2016), as they develop their academic skills (e.g., vocabulary, critical thinking, content knowledge: Green et al, 2018; Mikus, Tieben, & Schober, 2020).

6. Teachers will be required to collaborate with special education experts and staff at the venues to develop a curriculum for the day’s field trip that addresses the

needs of students’ with special needs and ensures they participate, enjoy the experience, and benefit academically (Deng, 2017; Fletcher et al., 2018)

B set of specific, concrete, evidence-based goals you want the policy to achieve 1. Students will gain academic skills (e.g., math, reading, critical thinking) and

improve their grades (Green et al., 2018; Mikus et al., 2020; Tazi et al., 2017) 2. Students will gain social-emotional skills and increase creativity (e.g., tolerance,

self-concept: Green et al., 2018; Kaufman et al., 2015) 3. Students will gain interest in the visual and performing arts and develop tangible

cultural capital (e.g., participation in arts and culture outside of school) (Kisida et al., 2014; Kisida et al., 2018; Mikus et al., 2020;

VII Evaluation A process (how you will test that the components of the policy were implemented

correctly) 1 Schools will be surveyed annually and asked to report on their field trips (where

they went, visual and performing arts standards it addressed) 2 Teachers will be surveyed about their planning process, linkage to the

curriculum, associated project-based learning activities 3 Principals will report on the supports provided to teachers to facilitate the

Fieldtrips 4. Special Education teachers will be asked to report on their contribution to the

planning of the fieldtrips and their assessment of the appropriateness of the experience for children with special needs

B outcomes – how you will test that the goals were achieved 1 goal 1: Improved academic skills will be tested in K, 4th, and 8th grade by

examining students’ projects and standardized tests; Grades will be collected annually

2 goal 2: Social and emotional skills will be measure in K, 4th, and 8th grade via parent report, child self-report, and teacher report; Creativity will be assessed in 4th and 8th grade by student self-report and objective measures of creativity (e.g., divergent thinking, ratings of projects)

3 goal 3: Student interest in the visual and performing arts will be measured by self-report in 4th and 8th grade; Cultural Capital will be measured by parent and youth report in 4th and 8th grade

VIII Conclusion A summary of key points (stats, prior policies, lit review) B summary of policy proposal and how this will promote child well-being in a broad sense

1. Children who have exposure to the arts and cultural capital tend to obtain more creative and satisfying jobs as adults (Koopman, 2016)

2. Cultural capital acts as a multiplier effect helping low income children experience social, educational, and economic mobility as adolescents and young adults (Crul et al., 2017)

C how the policy promotes children’s rights – citing specific articles from the Children’s Rights Convention (see the article posted on the assignment page)

This policy promotes two of the articles of the CRC: (1): article 31 (leisure, play and culture) Every child has the right to relax, play

and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities. (2) Article 28 (right to education) Every child has the right to an education. Primary education must be free and different forms of secondary education must be available to every child

IX reference list for the 15 required references Akiva, T., Schunn, C. D., & Louw, M. (2017). What drives attendance at informal learning

activities? A Study of two art programs. Curator, 60(3), 351–364 Carlson, S., Gerhards, J., & Hans, S. (2017). Educating children in times of globalisation: Class-

specific child-rearing practices and the acquisition of transnational cultural capital. Sociology, 51(4), 749-765.

Chiwara, D. (2016). Fostering Human Rights and Empowering Communities through Art and Education: The Case of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. Museum International, 68(3-4), 164-175.

Clarke-Vivier, S., & Lee, J. (2018). Because life doesn't just happen in a classroom: Elementary and middle school teacher perspectives on the benefits of, and obstacles to, out-of-school learning. Issues in Teacher Education, 27(3), 55-72

Crul, M., Schneider, J., Keskiner, E., & Lelie, F. (2017). The multiplier effect: How the accumulation of cultural and social capital explains steep upward social mobility of children of low-educated immigrants. Ethnic and Racial Studies: Special Issue: The Upcoming New Elite Among Children of Immigrants, 40(2), 321-338.

Deng, L. (2017). Equity of access to cultural heritage: Museum experience as a facilitator of learning and socialization in children with Autism. Curator: The Museum Journal, 60(4), 411-426

Fleming, J., Gibson, R., Anderson, M., Martin, A. J., & Sudmalis, D. (2016). Cultivating imaginative thinking: teacher strategies used in high-performing arts education classrooms. Cambridge Journal of Education, 46(4), 435–453.

Fletcher, T. S., Blake, A. B., & Shelffo, K. E. (2018). Can sensory gallery guides for children with sensory processing challenges improve their museum experience? Journal of Museum Education, 43(1), 66–77.

Gracia, P. (2015). Parent–child leisure activities and cultural capital in the United Kingdom: The gendered effects of education and social class. Social Science Research, 52, 290-302.

Greene, J., Erickson, H., Watson, A., & Beck, M. (2018). The play’s the thing: Experimentally examining the social and cognitive effects of school field trips to live theater performances. Educational Researcher, 47(4), 246-254

Greene, J., Kisida, B., & Bowen, D. (2014). The educational value of field trips: Taking students to an art museum improves critical thinking skills, and more. Education Next, 14(1), 78-86

Kaufman, R., Rinehardt, E., Hine, H., Wilkinson, B., Tush, P., Mead, B., & Fernandez, F. (2014). The effects of a museum art program on the self-concept of children. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 31(3), 118–125

Koppman, S. (2016). Different Like Me. Administrative Science Quarterly, 61(2), 291–331 Kisida, B., Greene, J., & Bowen, D. (2014). Creating Cultural Consumers: The Dynamics of

Cultural Capital Acquisition. Sociology of Education, 87(4), 281-295 Kisida, B., Bowen, D., & Greene, J. (2018). Cultivating interest in art: Causal effects of arts

exposure during early childhood. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 45, 197-203. Mikus, K., Tieben, N., & Schober, P. (2020). Children's conversion of cultural capital into

educational success: The symbolic and skill-generating functions of cultural capital. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 41(2), 197-217

Tazi, Z., Vidal, H., & Stein, K. (2015). Arte Juntos/Art Together: Promoting School Readiness among Latino Children through Parent Engagement and Social Inclusion in a Suburban Museum. Museum & Society, 13(2), 158-171

Xu, J., & Hampden-Thompson, G. (2012). Cultural reproduction, cultural mobility, cultural resources, or trivial effect? A comparative approach to cultural capital and educational performance. Comparative Education Review, 56(1), 98-124

Yi-Ping S. & Chin-Chun, Y. (2014). Cultivating the difference: Social class, parental values, cultural capital and children’s after-school activities in Taiwan. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 45(1), 55–75.