A few years ago professor Thalia Goldstein was asked by fellow scientists if she is an arts advocate. Her answer: No.
“I don’t necessarily consider myself an arts advocate in the way that people who work for arts organizations consider themselves arts advocates,” says Goldstein, a professor of applied developmental psychology in George Mason University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences. “I consider myself a seeker of what is. I believe, very strongly, that theater and acting does something.”
Goldstein, along with two other GMU professors, is now a co-principal investigator and co-director of the Mason Arts Research Center, which just received a two-year, $150,000 renewable grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. It is a center that is “all about research in the arts with a particular focus on child development and arts education … with a mission to talk about the science of arts research with the public,” she says. “There is so much misinformation and misunderstanding of research that we want to make sure the public has a good idea.”
Each of the three investigators—Goldstein; Adam Winsler, professor of applied developmental psychology in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences; and Kim Sheridan, a professor in the College of Education and Human Development with a co-appointment in the College of Visual and Performing Arts and a professor of Educational Psychology—are tackling different projects that relate to the overall mission. Goldstein is working with the Mason Community Arts Academy and other volunteer participants and taking a look at how children’s experiences in theater, drama and acting can help kids with their social skills, their empathy, compassion, their curious mind, their understanding of other people, their beliefs, desires and intentions. Winsler is working with students in Miami-Dade Public Schools to look at predictors of what children choose to enroll in art classes and programs and the outcomes on their academic and social achievement. Sheridan is focusing on design think and creativity by looking at enjoyment and motivation, along with ownership, creativity and collaboration based on types of projects assigned.
The researchers are trying to justify the role of arts in child development and education and trying to use the best tools of scientific research to determine what is happening.
“My interest is: what does it do?” says Goldstein. “I don’t have a predetermined [notion] the arts can fix things, the arts can get rid of predetermined prejudice. I would never claim that, but I do believe that theater does something for kids. I believe it would not continue to exist if it did not do something for kids and so my goal is to figure out what that is.”
The research center is just getting started and will continue the work on an ongoing basis. Goldstein’s project will start this summer, and more information can be found at ssit.gmu.edu. Sheridan’s work will begin during the upcoming school year. And Winkler’s data collecting has already begun. In the fall of 2019, there will be a two-day conference to talk about preliminary findings and research directions going in in the future.
(May 2018)
