Stage is yours! - MachMit!

The project “Stage is yours“ is funded by the Forschungsfond Kulturelle Bildung, a project of the Rat für Kulturelle Bildung e.V., and the Mercator Stiftung for three and a half years (10/2018-03/2022). It is a cooperation of the Educational Psychology (Prof. Dr. Sascha Schroeder) and the English Language Taching (Prof. Dr. Carola Surkamp) at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen.

In our subproject we carry out a longitudinal study and investigate the bidirectional relationship between participating in arts education and various personality traits of children and adolescents. We cooperate with a comprehensive school in Goettingen that offers a range of extracurricular activities with a cultural and aesthetic focus (such as theater, dance, music, visual arts and literature). In our first question, we ask whether participants differ in their basic cognitive skills, their personality traits and their socio-demographic and cultural background between the different activity groups. The second focus is longitudinally, where we ask whether participating in arts education results in a change in certain personality traits. The role of the motivation to participate is also considered. The results will form an empirical basis of recommendations to all-day schools by revealing whether arts education is beneficial to children and adolescents.

In this interview with Prof. Dr. Surkamp you find first results from our joint project concerning the personality of students taking part in theater actvities.