Racial-Ethnic Minority Participants in the Marching Arts: Intergroup Experiences, Perceptions of Inclusion, and Well-Being

The marching arts (MA) are an understudied art form involving both music and dance, which has been cited as an inclusive space for all, despite little to no work directly investigating racial-ethnic marching minority members' intergroup experiences. As such, the purpose of this study was to empirically assess racial minority members' intergroup experiences in the MA and if such experiences were related to their well-being. We conducted an online survey of 174 self-identified members of ethnic-racial minority groups in the United States who had participated in the MA. The sample was predominantly Black/African Americans (42%) and young adults (M-age = 27.54) with large numbers of Native American, Asian, and Hispanic members. Participants described their experiences of intergroup contact in the MA, feelings of belongingness, marching self-efficacy, and minority stress. When controlling for demographics and experience, we found positive intergroup contact is a more persistent predictor of stress, belongingness, and self-efficacy than negative contact. Despite positive contact being more persistent, negative contact is a significant moderator against the positive effects of positive contact, suggesting it can be particularly detrimental to the relationship between positive contact and well-being. These findings suggest MA activities may be viable avenues to explore arts engagement for people of color, and how intergroup contact symmetries and interactions of contact work in real-world contexts.