New Study Boosts Evidence Base for Music’s Impact on Student Wellbeing

Recent research out of the University of Southern California (USC) further supports what we know to be true: music education has a profound impact on student wellbeing. USC Professor Beatriz Ilari and Yale’s Eun Cho teamed up with the Fender Play Foundation to examine how music programs have helped students to thrive during the pandemic. Outcomes were aligned with five key areas in Positive Youth Development developed by Tufts University: competence, confidence, character, caring/compassion, and connection, in addition to school connectedness and hopeful future expectations. Surveying 120 students from Los Angeles Unified School District middle schools, the study found that students who participated in multiple forms of music education over longer periods of time scored higher in the areas of competence and hopeful future expectations. Read the full study in Frontiers in Psychology. And check out Beatriz’ Ensemble article on music and the developing brain from December 2020.