Rhode Island study links prolonged arts participation, especially music, to reduced chronic absenteeism

A new Rhode Island study suggests that sustained involvement in arts, particularly music, correlates with lower rates of chronic absenteeism among public school students, highlighting the potential educational benefits of arts integration.

At Mount Pleasant High School in Providence, Danielle Trial Lucini’s concert band students spent a Thursday morning working through riffs, pop melodies and short passages from the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army”. Lucini stopped them after one run-through to press for something more precise: less rush, more space between the notes. That classroom scene helps explain why Rhode Island educators are paying closer attention to arts instruction as a possible clue to a much wider problem: why some students keep missing school.

A new study commissioned by the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and conducted by Quadrant Research found a clear association between sustained arts participation and lower chronic absenteeism in public schools. Looking at education department data from 2018 through 2025, researchers asked whether arts students were less likely than non-arts students to miss school regularly. Chronic absenteeism is generally defined as missing at least 10% of enrolled school days. Rhode Island officials have made attendance a central priority in recent years, and Governor Dan McKee has promoted the Attendance Matters RI campaign, which relies on dashboards, school data and family outreach to reduce absences.

The strongest connection appeared in music. After adjusting for student demographics, year-to-year variation and school district, the researchers estimated that 25.4% of students who took music for four consecutive high school years were chronically absent, compared with 37.3% of students without four straight years of music. The broader arts category showed a much smaller difference. Across music, visual art, theatre, dance and media arts, the gap between students with four consecutive years of arts and those without that level of sustained participation was only 1.9 percentage points, according to the report.

Researchers and arts leaders were careful not to overstate what the numbers can prove. Robert Morrison, a co-author of the report and founder of Quadrant Research, said the findings show correlation, not causation. In other words, the study cannot establish that arts classes themselves make students attend more regularly. Students who remain in arts courses year after year may already have traits or circumstances that support attendance, such as stronger motivation, more stable home lives or prior experience outside school. Even so, Morrison said the data reflected something many educators have long believed: that sustained involvement matters far more than a one-off elective.

That theme came through in the stories told by music teachers and students at Mount Pleasant. Lucini said band can give some teenagers a reason to show up, especially when it offers both structure and choice. Providence Public Schools’ director of fine arts, Nicole Simpson, said arts classes are unusual because students help shape the final product rather than simply following a fixed sequence of lessons. Lucini said she lets beginners choose instruments they are drawn to, because ownership helps build commitment to the group. The class, she said, is like a large team project in which every player has to arrive prepared for the whole ensemble to work. One student, senior Sidney Feliz, said the school’s music programme helped draw her to Mount Pleasant in the first place and helped keep her engaged when her motivation dipped. Another student, Xionangelys Lopez Davila, said playing violin was hard at first but became rewarding over time. For Morrison, the attendance link is important, but it should not be the only reason to support the arts. The arts, he said, have value in their own right; better attendance is a bonus.