Academic Research

Academic Research

However, academically, the role of the arts on mental health is still under-researched as there are very few studies with large cohorts of participants. There are even fewer papers investigating the psychological effects of the arts on young people. The literature review of Hilary Bungay and Leyre Zarobe (2017) found only eight eligible studies to give evidence on the “role of arts activities in developing resilience and mental well-being in children and young people”. The WHO report identified some studies that provide evidence including children with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Another example is the study of Hei Wan Mak & Daisy Fancourt: “Longitudinal associations between ability in arts activities, behavioural difficulties and self-esteem: analyses from the 1970 British Cohort Study” (2019) with an overall sample size of 7700. In all studies, the tendency for improving the mental health of young people through art activities was recognized.

At the same time, there are countless case studies of small groups that record the experience of the young participants through empirical, qualitative research gained anecdotally through questionnaires, interviews, or focus groups and that overwhelmingly confirm the positive impact of the arts on young people. In addition, there are studies not specifically focused on children and young people which can still be useful in this context (see list above). Collectively, they constitute a huge body of evidence of the changes in well-being.

They also show that, while the arts cannot fix all the problems that affect the mental health of the young, there is a strong case to be made that giving more importance to the arts in children’s lives can have a positive effect on their mental health also later on in their life (compare Mak/Fancourt 2019).

If academic research would be ramped up it would not only provide the cultural, health, and social (and economic) sector with robust evidence of the impact of the arts on mental health in general, and in young people in particular but “may also in the longer term take the pressure off arts organisations to constantly evaluate small-scale projects.” (Baring Foundation 2020: 60)

Therefore, it is necessary to focus on the specific needs of the young population. These can be different depending on the context of life: level of education, social indicators, marginalised condition, need to prevent or treat mental illness.

The transversal needs, which all these social and cultural differences have in common, can be found in the specificity of the competences of psychic development.