How the Arts Help Young People Thrive: What We Learned from Culture-Centered Youth Programs
April 15, 2025
What does it look like when young people feel seen, heard, and supported through the arts? That’s the question at the heart of a new research study and the focus of our recent webinar, Well-Being and Well-Becoming Through the Arts: Centering Culture and Community in Youth Arts Programs.
Featuring our partners at the University of Pittsburgh School of Education and supported by The Wallace Foundation, the conversation marked the public release of the report, Well-Being and Well-Becoming Through the Arts: A Picture of Mattering for Youth of Color.
The study explored how high-quality, culture-centered, community-based youth arts programs support well-being and foster a strong sense of mattering for youth of color. And it confirmed what many in the field have long known: youth arts programs are powerful spaces of learning, healing, and growth—when they’re designed with intention and rooted in culture and community.
“These programs were serving youth in specific art forms,” explained lead researcher Dr. Esohe Osai of the University of Pittsburgh. “They were unapologetic in their intention to build skills in the art form… whether visual arts, dance, theater, music, literary arts, or digital media arts.”
From Research to Real Life
The research team visited 35 youth arts programs in eight cities, selected because they shared three essential qualities: they provided high-quality arts instruction, they were grounded in youth development, and they were culture-centered—founded or led by people of color, and serving young people with deep ties to their racial or ethnic identities.
From this work, seven key characteristics emerged across programs:
- Nurturing artistic skill
- Cultivating creative restoration
- Establishing artful sanctuaries
- Fostering generative connections
- Highlighting meaningful pathways
- Promoting cultural visibility
- Emphasizing equity intentionality
Want a quick summary of the findings and practical guidance for applying them? Download the two-page tool for youth arts practitioners.
In Their Own Words: Insights from Program Leaders
To bring these findings to life, we invited four leaders from programs featured in the study to reflect on how these characteristics show up in their work.
NyRee Clayton-Taylor, founder and co-director of Hip Hop into Learning (HHN2L) in Louisville, Kentucky, spoke to how her program promotes cultural visibility:
“As an organization, we acknowledge, we affirm, and we celebrate the past, present, and the future using the art of hip hop,” she said. “We start in the present… using our motto, lyrics to action, to help our students create music that bangs, that they want to listen to—but also connect it to an issue that they may be feeling.”
Students in the program responded to the death of Breonna Taylor by creating the song Crown, which celebrated Black women and natural hair. That project became a catalyst for change, supporting passage of the Crown Act ordinance in Louisville and even earning the students an invitation to Berlin to share their work.
Ofelia Guerra, executive director of Ballet Folklorico de Chicago, described her program as an artful sanctuary:
“It’s a safe space,” she said. “A second home where they can grow and express themselves… take pride not only in themselves but in their culture.”
Raffaella Falchi Macias, executive director of Youth Art Exchange in San Francisco, emphasized generative connections—from youth-led design-build partnerships with city agencies to a youth advisory board that helps hire staff and write grants:
“They follow the real-world process. They have design review meetings, a real budget, permitting… and then they actually get to build.”
Uton Onyejekwe, drama department chair at Newark School of the Arts, described how his program nurtures both artistic skill and restoration:
“We’re all storytellers,” he said. “And I want our youngest students to know that, to have agency in shaping their own stories.”
Young students collaborate to write and perform original plays, while older students engage with culturally relevant material that allows them to explore their identities and develop their voices as actors and changemakers.
The Role of Teaching Artists
An important focus of the study was the central role teaching artists play in culture-centered, community-based arts programs.
Tiffany Walker, Senior Research & Evaluation Specialist at the Forum, shared insights from focus groups with 51 participants from 18 programs across eight cities, which helped deepen our understanding of teaching artists’ experiences—and how they draw on their knowledge and training to engage young people through the arts.
“Many of the teaching artists viewed their programs as platforms for artistic skill development that could lead to future occupations (for youth) in the discipline or a lasting appreciation for art,” Walker noted.
Walker highlighted themes that emerged from the discussions with the teaching artists, including skill-building, critical consciousness, connections to resources, and providing overall support of young people as they develop confidence in their artform.
What Systems Can Learn
In addition to analyzing individual programs, the research team also examined how local ecosystems supported—or in some cases limited—access to the arts for youth of color.
“We feel that teaching artists, and how a city treats teaching artists, determines the health of the arts ecosystem,” said Dr. Tom Akiva. “They need to be well treated. They need to be well paid and have benefits and opportunities for advancement—just like all of us.”
The study also found that youth in dance programs reported especially strong outcomes related to well-being and racial identity. While more research is needed, this points to potential insights about how different art forms uniquely support youth development.
More can be learned about the research methodology and analysis by exploring the Technical Appendix.
A Final Thought
As the webinar wrapped up, one audience member asked what advice panelists would give to young people who are trying to lead and teach others while navigating their own challenges.
NyRee Clayton-Taylor responded without hesitation:
“If they are creating, they can teach it,” she said. “It’s about making sure that they understand that what they’re creating is teachable… and that they deserve to be seen.”