Loss of Art and Music Education in Elementary and Middle School - how does this affect children?

Loss of Art and Music Education in Elementary and Middle School - how does this affect children?

Background to Situation

All across the nation, it has been observed that children belonging to any social status, age groups or race find stimulation and inspiration in art and music programs offered by their schools. Music is the source of inspiration for most of the students. These powerful programs of art and music education seemed to be highly influencing for developing creative skills in student of elementary and middle schools. In spite of this, these matters are mostly chopped when schools start making their budget cuts. Due to this, there are many schools that have even completely lost their art and music based education (Sieff, 2010).

New York City which was once considered as a leader in arts education is now involved in making efforts to offer any music classes to its students. It has been observed since 1990 budget cuts that arts and music programs in most of the towns and cities across the country have disappeared. Arts education experts claim it as an unbelievable shame that children are culturally disenfranchised in their State (Pogrebin, 2007).

Problem Statement

In current situation, it is very troubling that majority of the students are not able to access arts education. Elementary schools do not offer any drama classes these days. High schools with do not offer music due to poor financial conditions of students(Hernandez, 2008).

Purpose Statement

The main purpose of this research is to study the reasons behind the lack of education and arts being taught to students of Elementary and Middle School and its effects on skill development in children.

Research Questions

This research will focus on the following research questions:

Q2. To what extend financial strain has affected the loss of art and music education in middle and elementary schools?

Q1. What are the major effects that are produced with lack of music and art education?

Q2. What is expected in a future starved of music education in the middle and elementary schools?

Q3. What are the consequences of curtailing music offerings to children?

Conceptual or Theoretical framework

Loss of art and music is considered to be a big concern. Many researches have conducted on this topic. Research questions mentioned above are discussed by several scholars and researchers (Davis, 2006). Cuts of music and art programs in middle and elementary schools have resulted because of the fear of financial strain. In the past five years, the percentage of children who are offered with music education has declined to 50%. Due to the increase in expenses and lack of financial support, schools are neglecting the importance of art and music (Chira, 1993),They are unaware of the fact that art and music play very effective role in developing and enhancing creativity skills in children(Pogrebin, 2007).

Administrators who are involved in removing art and music classes from schools claim that the troubles in finance and budget as the main ...