Does music soothe the soul? Evaluating the impact of a music education programme in Medellin, Colombia

Gómez‑Zapata, Jonathan Daniel, Herrero‑Prieto, Luis César and Beatriz Rodriguez-Prado

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Numerous studies have borne out the efects of cultural and music education on individuals’ well-being, considering music as a mainly systematic practice or skill or as established educational supply. However, few studies assess the impact of music programmes designed to achieve specifc goals, where music is considered as a tool for social change. As a case study, we take the Medellin Music School Network (Colombia), whose education programme for music initiation has been running for 23 years. Our aim is to evaluate the economic and social impact generated by participating in this programme. We use a quasi-experimental propensity score matching technique as the evaluation method. Results show that the programme signifcantly reduces the probability of participants’ becoming involved in confict, added to which they perceive a better quality of life. Students achieve better academic performance and intensify cultural consumption and participation in artistic activities. Institutional efcacy is refected through benefciaries expressing a positive and signifcant willingness to pay in order to maintain the programme. The work also aims to evidence the usefulness of the methodology for evaluating the impact of cultural policies, articularly in developing areas.

Keywords: Cultural economics; Music training; Cultural policy evaluation; Propensity score matching; Eficacy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 I26 J01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-07-08, Revised 2020-03-23
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Journal of Cultural Economics 45 (2021): pp. 63-104

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/123074/1/MPRA_paper_123074.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:123074

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().