Daniel H. Bowen

Learning to Think Critically: A Visual Art Experiment

This article examines whether exposure to the arts has an effect on the ability of students to engage in critical thinking. We conduct a randomized controlled trial involving 3,811 students who were assigned by lottery to participate in a School Visit Program at the newly opened Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Students who participated in the School Visit Program demonstrated significantly stronger critical thinking skills when analyzing a new painting. These effects were larger for students from more disadvantaged backgrounds. In light of recent declines in the availability of the arts for disadvantaged populations, our results have important policy implications for efforts to restore and expand access to the arts.

Creating Cultural Consumers The Dynamics of Cultural Capital Acquisition

The theories of cultural reproduction and cultural mobility have largely shaped the study of the effects of cultural capital on academic outcomes. Missing in this debate has been a rigorous examination of how children actually acquire cultural capital when it is not provided by their families. Drawing on data from a large-scale experimental study of schools participating in an art museum’s educational program, we show that students’ exposure to a cultural institution has the effect of creating ‘‘cultural consumers’’ motivated to acquire new cultural capital. We find that the experience has the strongest impact on students from more disadvantaged backgrounds. As such, our analysis reveals important aspects about the nature of cultural capital acquisition. To the extent that the evidence supporting cultural mobility is accurate, it may be because disadvantaged children can be activated to acquire cultural capital, thus compensating for family background characteristics and changing their habitus.

Urban School Choice and Integration: The Effect of Charter Schools in Little Rock

We examine the impact of charter schools on school integration in the Little Rock, Arkansas metropolitan area. We find that charters are less likely to be hyper-segregated than traditional public schools (TPS), but TPS have compositions more closely reflecting the region. However, differences in each case are slight. Using student-level data to follow students who left TPS for charters, we find that most transfers improve integration levels at the schools they left. This finding is attributed to the fact that most transfers involve minority students leaving predominately minority schools or White students leaving predominantly White schools.

Risky business: an analysis of teacher risk preferences

A range of proposals aim to reform teacher compensation, recruitment, and retention. Teachers have generally not embraced these policies. One potential explanation for their objections is that teachers are relatively risk averse. We examine this hypothesis using a risk-elicitation task common to experimental economics. By comparing preferences of new teachers with those entering other professions, we find that individuals choosing to teach are significantly more risk averse. This suggests that the teaching profession may attract individuals who are less amenable to certain reforms. Policy-makers should take into account teacher risk characteristics when considering reforms that may clash with preferences.

The art of partnerships: Community resources for arts education

The shift from the No Child Left Behind Act to the recently authorized Every Student Succeeds Act could beckon a renaissance of K-12 arts education in the U.S. Over the past decade, NCLB’s increased emphasis on accountability testing in core subjects has coincided with a notable decline in school-based arts exposure. Recognizing this trend and anticipating its consequences, many school districts and arts education advocacy organizations have been tackling this challenge through innovative, community-based partnerships that leverage existing arts education resources, bringing local arts organizations, cultural institutions, artists, and philanthropic efforts together to provide enriching opportunities for students in high-need schools. These partnerships provide models that schools, districts, and states could adopt to strengthen their arts programs.

Assessing the Impact of the Holocaust Museum Houston's Field Trips on Adolescents' Civic Values

Civics-based educational interventions are intended to prepare students for effectively engaging in democratic society. Social studies curriculum and instruction scholars have made strong cases for the vital role that teaching adolescents about the Holocaust serves in fostering and reinforcing civic values. While these lessons have great promise, however, effectively teaching about the Holocaust poses substantial challenges for educators whom may not be well-versed or comfortable with teaching challenging, sensitive topics. Holocaust museums and memorials have played a critical role in helping teachers overcome these obstacles. Scholars have commended these efforts, but the body of empirical research evaluating these supports is limited. Applying experimental methods with a sample of 865 students across 15 middle and high school campuses, we examine the causal effects that a field trip intervention to the Holocaust Museum Houston has on students’ civic values. We find that this experience has a significant, positive impact on students’ desires to protect civil rights and liberties. Students also demonstrate a more accurate grasp of historical facts regarding the Holocaust. Overall, we did not find significant evidence that this intervention affected students’ sense of civic obligation, empathy, willingness to take on roles as “upstanders,” inclinations towards civil disobedience, or the willingness to donate to charities whose missions align with these objectives. We also find that this experience appears to have a negative effect with regard to tolerance. However, this particular result is possibly attributed to ceiling or framing effects. Finally, we find substantial differences in outcomes by student subgroups. Specifically, female students experience significant negative effects with regard to their senses of civic obligation and empathy as a result of their field trip experiences; estimates on these outcomes with males are in the positive direction, though they are statistically insignificant. Hispanic/Latinx and African-American students appear to have propelled the overall positive effect on the preservation of civil liberties; white students experience positive effects on support for civil disobedience in response to acts of injustice but demonstrate negative effects on empathy. Finally, students from less-educated parent households appear to have driven the negative effect on tolerance. Students from college-educated parental households experience positive effects in terms of preserving liberty as well as their willingness to financially support charitable causes whose missions overlap with secondary Holocaust education objectives.

Improving Urban Middle Schools: Lessons from the Nativity Schools by L. Mickey Fenzel

Since the release of the Coleman Report (1966), policymakers, educators, and researchers have sought ways to provide better educational opportunities for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Despite their efforts, racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities persist (Loeb, 2007). However, it is not hopeless for these students. A relatively recent expansion of schooling options has provided many of these students with alternatives that produce impressive results. For example, one of the best known and studied examples is the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) charter school network (e.g., Angrist, Dynarski, Kane, Pathak, & Walters, 2010; Tuttle, Teh, Nichols-Barrer, Gill, & Gleason, 2010). However, while charter schools continue to make headlines, it is important to not forget the past and present successes of urban Catholic schools. While the documented successes of certain charter networks is still relatively new, the evidence of Catholic school accomplishments now dates back over several decades (e.g., Coleman, Hoffer, & Kilgore, 1982). In Improving Urban Middle Schools: Lessons from the Nativity Schools, Fenzel has provided a reminder of the ongoing successes of these schools through an in-depth overview of an increasingly popular and successful Catholic middle school network, Nativity Schools. Fenzel’s objective, as evidenced in the title, is to examine, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the characteristics and practices that make these schools effective. The first chapters of the book provide an overview of the state of urban schools as well as the history and model of the Nativity network. Fenzel then provides empirical evidence for Nativity’s accomplishments, concluding with some lessons learned and possible implications for the future operations of urban middle schools. The first Nativity model school opened in the lower east side of Manhattan in 1971. Jesuit priests, along with community volunteers, opened this essentially tuition-free school in hopes of providing a high-quality education for the at-risk boys in this predominantly poor, Latino neighborhood. Since then, dozens of Nativity schools have opened, now educating thousands of students each year in some of the most poverty-stricken districts throughout the country. Common features of the Nativity model include