City lore
Nations in Neighborhoods (NiN) is a program of folk and traditional arts instruction offered by City Lore to low-income elementary school students in the New York City schools, many of whom were recent immigrants and English Language Learners. In 2012 and 2013, WolfBrown conducted an evaluation of NiN, which revealed that students participating in the program exhibited significantly higher scores on their standardized English Language Arts (ELA) tests than their peers. Qualitative data also suggests how classroom processes like learning from cultural masters, collaboration, and the creation of culminating events may have contributed to these academic outcomes. Such results speak to the role that a well-rounded education, including the arts, can play in all children’s development. The results of this work were published in The Journal for Learning Through the Arts, and were recently included in a systematic review of the evidence for arts integration conducted by the American Institutes for Research for the Wallace Foundation.
Completed: 2014
Consultants: Dennis Wolf, Steven Holochwost
Category: Arts Education Research and Program Development