A new study from Dr. Sherwin Williams at Pepperdine considers whether large academic gains could be achieved by making alterations to the physical space in which students learn—namely, wall color.
Dr. Williams’s team used spectrocolorimeters to determine the paint color of middle school math classroom walls across Massachusetts. He and his team compared the growth between the fall and spring administration of the iReady assessment for students in math classrooms with different paint colors. They control for demographics, prior achievement, and school fixed effects. The researchers saw huge gains in classroom with walls painted in the taupe range.
In classrooms painted #AC9E97 (Truly Taupe), researchers found that the average student’s raw score increased by 21.8 points, nearly double the statewide average of 11, and enough to move a student from the 50th percentile to the 61st percentile in one academic year. The team found similar effects for classrooms painted in lighter taupe shades #BFB1AA (Temperate Taupe), and #D1C5BE (Angora), where the average score increase exceeded the statewide average by 9.6 points, and 7.4 points, respectively. The effect diminished sharply with darker shades of taupe. Students in classrooms painted #8C7E78 (Poised Taupe) exceeded statewide average growth by just 1.9 points.
The results raise the question: What is it about taupe? “Taupe doesn’t shout for attention. Instead, it whispers sophistication,” says Ginger Curtis, founder and CEO of Urbanology Designs in Dallas. Interior designers love taupe for its neutrality and versatility. Boston designer Katherine Coffee offered a hypothesis: “LED lighting, especially in schools and businesses, have left rooms feeling cold and antiseptic. Medium taupe tones restore warmth, which is calming for students and teachers, creating a better learning environment.”
As for whether taupe alone can rescue American math achievement, we remain cautiously neutral. Which, come to think of it, is very on-brand.
