Date of Award
Spring 5-18-2019
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
MA - Master of Arts
Department
Expressive Therapies
Advisor
Emily Marsick, PhD
Abstract
Since 2013, the majority of students served by the public school system in the United States have been considered “low-income” by the federal government. The stressors associated with low socioeconomic status significantly increase risk for social, emotional and behavioral challenges at all age levels, but can be particularly damaging to adolescents coping with heightened stress levels related to the intense multi-dimensional changes that define this developmental period. As the correlation between economic disadvantage and negative socio-emotional and academic outcomes is increasingly evidenced, schools have begun to recognize their responsibility for providing preventative mental health care to high-risk students. Over the last decade therapeutic expressive arts programs have been implemented internationally within secondary schools to promote resilience in underprivileged adolescents. Arts-based modalities offer an opportunity to develop positive peer relationships, self-efficacy, creative problem solving skills, and coherent narratives of self in a format that increases accessibility and reduces stigma associated with mental health treatment. Although multiple examples of school-based resiliency groups utilizing single-modality arts therapies can be found in the literature, intermodal expressive arts therapy, the most recently established of the therapeutic arts disciplines, has yet to be examined in this context. Through analysis of established resiliency-based programs for high-risk adolescents within the modalities of visual art, drama, writing, music and dance/movement therapies, recommendations for the design and implementation of programming based specifically on the practices of intermodal expressive arts therapy are developed to guide necessary future research.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Knox, Bailey, "Promoting Resilience in Economically Disadvantaged Adolescents through School-Based Expressive Arts Groups" (2019). Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses. 126.
https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/expressive_theses/126
Included in
Art Therapy Commons, Community Health and Preventive Medicine Commons, Counselor Education Commons, Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons, Dance Movement Therapy Commons, Educational Psychology Commons, Education Policy Commons, Interdisciplinary Arts and Media Commons, Movement and Mind-Body Therapies Commons, Other Mental and Social Health Commons, Public Health Education and Promotion Commons, School Psychology Commons, Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education Commons
Rights
The author owns the copyright to this work.
