Examining Culturally Structured Learning Environments With Different Types of Music-Linked Movement Opportunity

This study describes two experiments that extended earlier work on the Afrocultural theme Movement Expression. The impact of various learning conditions characterized by different types of music-linked movement on story recall performance was examined. African American children were randomly assigned to a learning condition, presented a story, and tested on story recall. In Experiment 1 (N = 48), the authors confirmed the basic finding of Boykin and colleagues that learning conditions with polyrhythmic-percussive music type and high movement opportunity enhanced story recall better than other types of music-linked movement. In Experiment 2 (N = 128), the authors compared story recall in different music-linked movement conditions across grade levels and established improvement only for fourth graders in the learning condition with polyrhythmic-percussive music and high movement. Both fourth and sixth graders' lowest performance was in the condition devoid of any music or movement. Finally, a positive relationship was observed between performance and children's mood state in each learning condition. Movement Expression as a powerful tool for classroom learning for African American children is discussed.