Next Generation Now: Benefits of the arts for children and young people 2024
The Australian Government commissioned the report, link below, out of their commitment to building a powerful future for their country and peoples.
"Children and young people have fundamental human rights to play, to access culture, to engage in self-expression and to experience challenging, complex artworks and new ideas. The art children and young people create and experience is valuable in its own right. Creative activity also has real and significant positive outcomes for young participants – for their physical, emotional, intellectual and social wellbeing – and is important for our broader culture, community, economy and country."
"The arts offer unparalleled value for money.
Investment in arts and culture increases opportunity for every child, from every corner of the country, no matter their background or experience.
The cost of all this is relatively low, and the benefits extraordinarily high."
Reporthttps://creative.gov.au/research/next-generation-now-benefits-arts-children-and-young-people
While there is considerable evidence of the positive impacts of children and young people’s arts engagement, it is but one dimension of our complex society. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s Supporting Healthy Communities Through Arts Programs report acknowledges that the arts on their own cannot fix everything, and emphasises a holistic approach that integrates health, community and culture to achieve success.1
The arts, in this sense, play an important role in an interconnected system, contributing to cultural as well as broader public value, and supporting the lives of young people in multiple ways.
Image Courtesy of Artolution - The Art Solution - artolution.org
Report Highlights
How children and young people value the arts From birth, the arts offer children ways to be in relationship with the world and the people in it, through both aesthetic appreciation and modes of interaction.2
Collaborative arts engagement helps young children to develop a sense of themselves as individuals, as members of a community, and as artists.
Children define and enjoy the arts in powerful, nuanced and broad ways.
Engagement in the arts offers young people joy, inspiration, new knowledge and perspectives, and opportunities for self-expression and connection with others.
Building civic capacity and cultural citizenship
Arts programs can develop the tools for cultural citizenship and civic participation within young people, building resilience within the context of uncertain social and political futures.
Young people’s experience of official citizenship can be enhanced when their cultural identities and practices are also acknowledged and celebrated.
Well-considered art experiences, delivered through partnerships between schools and public cultural organisations, can help children and young people to develop the dispositions and skills to be active citizens at all stages of their lives.
Arts participation can contribute to improved social and economic outcomes, positively addressing the needs of under-resourced schools or young adult communities.
Impact on health and wellbeing
Health and wellbeing are complex concepts encompassing physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual dimensions.
The arts have an important role in improving the health and wellbeing of diverse populations through prevention, promotion and treatment programs.
Arts engagement has a positive impact on early childhood wellbeing.
Engagement in youth arts supports young people’s social and emotional development, providing protective factors against poor mental health.
Arts activities can offer physical and emotional health benefits.
Creative interventions can be effective in changing young people’s attitudes towards illicit drugs and alcohol and developing young people’s refusal skills.
Impact on society and community
The arts can promote creative resilience among young people, helping them to imagine, hope for, enact and work towards a liveable future.
Arts and culture are particularly relevant within First Nations communities, where they are recognised as maintaining connection to culture and community, and contributing to individual and community health.
Arts participation strengthens community cohesion by fostering connections among young people and their communities, enhancing empathy and social bridging.
The creative arts offer innovative and sensitive ways to help children build empathy, and to recognise and respond to negative or dangerous situations such as bullying and violence.
Impact on learning and development
Children’s creative meaning-making acts as an essential building block for future numeracy and text-based literacy.
Arts participation enhances academic achievement and school engagement, improving confidence and reducing the likelihood of young people falling through the gaps.
The arts promote learning through improved academic outcomes and the development of learning dispositions such as persistence, communication, problem-solving and curiosity.
The arts teach that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.
Arts-rich education sites have multiple benefits to individuals and to school communities.
A New Approach’s insight research series report Transformative: impacts of culture and creativity provides a concise analysis of the benefits of the arts to education and learning.43 The authors write that “arts and culture-based education has been found to be beneficial in developing intellectual skills and enhancing educational impacts. This helps future proof Australia’s workforce and also helps mitigate disadvantage, particularly with students who are ‘at-risk’: who are socio-economically disadvantaged, at risk of prematurely disengaging from schooling, and/or expressing anti-social or non-coping behaviours”.44
There is significant potential for engagement with literature to address social determinants of education outcomes.
21st century skills such as creative leadership, collaboration and critical thinking are developed through youth arts projects
There is a strong artistic contribution from children and young people, and from the children, young people and the arts (CYPA) sector across all artforms.
Children have a high capacity for appreciating and creating contemporary art, and this can influence artistic practice.
Artistic value
The art that children and young people make is helping to shape the national arts landscape.
Children have a high capacity for appreciating and creating contemporary art, and this can influence artistic practice.
Economic impact
While there have been numerous analyses conducted of the overall economic impact of the arts,53 little is known about the contribution that the children and youth arts sector makes to the Australian economy. However, as indicated in the citations above, we do know that the arts have the potential to reduce the social and economic barriers to children and young people realising their full potential. And this is likely to have a corresponding impact on productivity. As the Kindred report notes, quoting Helen Legg of Tate Liverpool:54
A New Approach’s insight research series report Transformative: impacts of culture and creativity provides a concise analysis of the benefits of the arts to education and learning.43 The authors write that “arts and culture-based education has been found to be beneficial in developing intellectual skills and enhancing educational impacts. This helps future proof Australia’s workforce and also helps mitigate disadvantage, particularly with students who are ‘at-risk’: who are socio-economically disadvantaged, at risk of prematurely disengaging from schooling, and/or expressing anti-social or non-coping behaviours”.44
There is significant potential for engagement with literature to address social determinants of education outcomes.
