In collaboration with the Mason Arts Research Center — supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Early Learning Coalition of Miami-Dade/Monroe, and the Children’s Trust— we collaborated with a team of academic researchers to conduct comprehensive studies on arts education and student achievement.

Examining data from over 30,000 public school students in Miami, we tracked their engagement in visual and performing arts electives throughout middle and high school. Our findings provided district leadership with insights into the characteristics of students most likely to enroll in arts programs, the duration of student participation in arts electives, and the impact of arts education on attendance, suspension rates, and state-mandated test scores.

This research has helped inform district policies on the role of arts education in student success. Projects published in Research in Dance Education and Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.

Publications

Gara, T. V., Winsler, A. (2024). Who is taking dance electives, when, and for how long? Adolescents’ dance participation and persistence in middle and high school. Research in Dance Education, 1(23). Click here to view the abstract.

Gara, T. V., & Winsler, A. (2020). Selection into, and academic benefits from, middle school dance elective courses among urban youth. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 14(4), 433-450. Click here to view the abstract.

Winsler, A., Gara, T. V.,Alegrado, A., Castro, S., & Tavassolie, T. (2019). Selection into, and academic benefits from, arts-related courses in middle school for low-income, ethnically diverse youth. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts,14(4), 415-432. Click here to view the abstract.

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era (2002-2015) left education stakeholders wondering how consequential accountability policies impacted visual and performing arts education across public schools in the United States. To better understand this, we examined changes in the landscape of visual and performing arts programs during the NCLB era, including classroom instructional time and staffing. We used quantitative data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics, including the Schools and Staffing Survey and Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies.

Findings featured in Arts Education Policy Review and Early Childhood Research Quarterly. Findings presented at the American Education Research Association and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management conferences.

Publications

Gara, T. V., Farkas, G., & Brouillette, L. (2020). Did consequential accountability policies decrease the share of visual and performing arts education in U.S. public secondary schools during the No Child Left Behind Era? Arts Education Policy Review. Click here to view the full article.

Gara, T. V., Brouillette, L., & Farkas, G. (2018). Did the frequency of early elementary classroom arts instruction decrease after no child left behind? If so, for whom? Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 45(4), 263-276. Click here to view the abstract.

A partnership with the Santa Ana Unified School District in Southern California allowed us to design and implement a mixed-methods longitudinal research study. We supported the district in understanding the academic achievement and motivational factors linked to adolescents’ engagement in their sequentially designed dance programs, including the pre-professional SanArts Dance Conservatory.

Utilizing a diverse range of new and existing data sources — including student educational records, surveys, interviews, field observations, and archival documents — we provided the district with valuable insights to support continuous improvement and strategic planning for their dance education programs.

Publications

Gara, T. V. (2021). High School Dance Education: Academic Achievement and Commitment among Hispanic Adolescents in an Urban School District. University of California, Irvine. ProQuest ID: Gara_uci_0030D_16891. Click here to view the dissertation.

Gara, T. V. Adolescent Motivation to Participate in the SanArts Dance Conservatory: 2018-2019. Report prepared for the Santa Ana Unified School District and Dance Conservatory Staff.

This encylopedia entry describes human artistic engagement across the lifespan and associated developmental outcomes. Art is categorized by four modalities: dance, drama, music, and visual art. The stages of development discussed are early childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The entry describes the origins of early artistic activity, followed by a summary of art, culture, and society. It then explains underlying processes of how art increases adaptive cognitive and socioemotional development and briefly reviews each developmental stage in relation to artistic engagement and outcomes.

Publication

Gara, T. V., & Winsler A. (2018). Art. In M. Bornstein (Ed.) The Sage Encyclopedia of Lifespan Human Development. New York, NY: Sage Publications. Click here to view a sample of the encyclopedia entry.