Although there is a growing interest in unpacking the mental health benefits of arts especially in therapeutic contexts, limited studies have directly linked arts with students’ well-being. Studies that explored arts and well-being often occur in individuals with mild to severe clinically significant conditions, neglecting the broader impact of the arts on students’ everyday school experiences. This systematic review aims to qualitatively summarize existing studies on the types, theoretical bases, modalities, features, and findings of arts-based interventions for students’ well-being in school contexts. Studies were rigorously extracted from the ERIC, Web of Science, PsycINFO (via EBSCOhost), and PROQUEST Dissertations and Theses databases through a three-stage review procedure, resulting in 27 eligible studies. Results showed that most studies used quantitative approaches (n = 18; 67%) to assess the effects of arts-based interventions on well-being outcomes. These interventions mainly combined arts forms (n = 11) and face-to-face intervention (n = 24). Further, most findings demonstrated that arts-based interventions yielded positive impacts on socially oriented well-being outcomes (n = 9), and relatively few studies have investigated their positive effects on intrinsic psychological processes, such as sense of identity, personal growth, and optimism among others. Our review indicates that arts-based interventions generally yield positive effects on both socially and intrinsically oriented well-being outcomes. The findings also underscore the importance of conceptualizing, implementing, and evaluating innovative arts-based interventions that address students’ diverse abilities, socio-economic, cultural, and developmental backgrounds.
Sirui LIU (Tue,) studied this question.
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