Social-emotional skills strengthened by the arts

Researchers from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, George Mason University and City University of New York have found that students’ empathy and other social-emotional skills can be boosted by live theater. The authors of a study on the subject wrote: “Several significant findings suggest that when paired with educational pre- and post-show experiences, students’ social perspective taking and empathy can be positively impacted through a single live theater performance.” This follows a recent study published in October in the BMC Medical Education journal which found that 35% of Portuguese students surveyed were actively involved in arts expression, typically scoring higher in empathy.