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This qualitative phenomenological collective case study examined the explicit and implicit cultural messages in our current national, New York State, and New York City dance standards through the eyes of their writers and users and a content analysis of the texts, to re-evaluate racial justice and cultural equity in these policy documents. My data were drawn from 15 individual semi-structured interviews with standards writers to unearth the cultural messages they intended to convey; 6 semi-structured small group discussions with 25 PK-12 dance teachers and teaching artists to discover how they perceived these messages; and the 2nd, 5th, 8th, and 12th grade benchmarks of the texts. Participant data were analyzed using emic inductive coding, while the text was analyzed using etic theoretical coding. The spectrum of participant viewpoints revealed both alignments and gaps between writer intentions, teacher perceptions, and the texts. My findings suggested that a Euro Western framework is implicitly embedded in aspects of the standards’ creating, performing, and responding processes, which are presented and may be perceived as colorblind and universal, and that the documents promote multiculturalism but not the social activist goals of culturally relevant pedagogy. Based on this analysis, I propose that the standards reflect a dance education archival discourse that stems from a creative modern dance lineage, and that including other cultural frameworks for dance across all processes/strands will enhance their equity and multicultural applicability. Issues and implications identified by this research are offered for consideration by future standards writing committees, by dance educators who use the documents, and by the field at large in our ongoing dialogue about cultural equity in dance education theory and practice.

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Research Report required for the completion of Master of Arts – Applied Drama (MAAD) Drama for Life - Wits School of Arts - Wits University March 2015 / This study aims to explore ideas of liberation in relation to the present tendencies of gender representation in Tango. I argue that the traditional pedagogic model, observed in Johannesburg, tends to perpetuate hegemonic discourses mainly through terminology in which gender binaries, codes and subjectivities are normalized. Such representations reduce, or even reject, plurality and diversity by sustaining specific power dynamics, necessarily related to the role of men and women. Tango is characterized by certain aesthetic elements described in this thesis, and here I prioritize the analysis of its role as a social dance, in the category of couples’ dances. I argue that couples’ dances are embedded in historically and socially constructed stereotypes; thus, the dynamics observed in balls are not capable of reflecting present gender complexities and identities. To do so, I first present a critical reflection of the history of couples’ dances and Tango, along with my own lived experience as a movement facilitator. Then, I present descriptions of the first phase of the research, the Performance as Research (PAR) project in which I aimed to deconstruct hegemony by challenging gender fixities. The PAR included creative processes, interviews, performance, media and textual production, and the main outcome was related to the pedagogy of dance, presenting the DE-GENDERED MODEL of teaching-learning. In the second phase of research, or what I call the fieldwork, I engaged with different methods, such as dance meetings based on investigative approaches, body mapping, micro-performance, group discussions and questionnaires to collect data together with a group of 9 participants. I made sense of all the information collected during PAR, and, given by participants during fieldwork, by correlating theories of performance, critical pedagogy, gender and queer studies, with the purpose of including collaborative pathways of embodiment.

This study investigated children's attributions for their performance in creative dance and folk dance. Eighty-six grade 5 and 6 children from a suburban elementary school participated in five creative dance and five folk dance lessons as part of their regular physical education program. After participation in each dance type, children completed a questionnaire which assessed their perceived success and attributions for their performance. After rating their perceived success in creative/folk dance, children gave an open-ended attributional statement for their performance, and then scored their statement along the four causal dimensions (personal control, locus of causality, stability, external control) (Weiss, McAuley, Ebbeck, & Wiese, 1990). Thirteen dance lessons were videotaped and the teacher's behavior was analysed. Results showed that children in both creative and folk dance tended to: (a) perceive their performance as successful, and (b) make functional attributions by attributing their performance to factors which they perceived as being personally controllable, internal, and not under the control of other people. Results indicated no significant effects of dance type or gender for perceived success and the four causal dimensions. However, two significant effects were found for grade, as the grade 5's perceived their performance to be more successful than the grade 6's, and also attributed their performance to factors that were less under the control of other people. Results from children's open-ended attributional statements and the observational recordings of the teacher's behavior supported the notion that creative dance and folk dance are two distinct forms of dance. The overall results appear to have positive implications with respect to the influence of creative dance and folk dance on the motivation of children. The findings therefore support the inclusion of dance in elementary physical education programs.

This study arises out of my experiences of conducting flamenco dance workshops in a number of schools. During my visits I became concerned by what I observed happening in dance education at these schools. In discussion with the teachers I began to identify various challenges and constrains that had the effect of ‘boxing’ dance in the formal education curriculum. I became concerned with the effect these ‘boxes’ were having on dance education and I felt compelled to try and address some of the issues and challenges I observed. The diversity of cultures found in many urban schools that I visited, presents a tremendous challenge for educators wishing to include dance into their learning programmes. As a result dance is either not being offered at these schools or is approached in a tokenistic way. In many instances the teachers I spoke to were inadequately trained or ignorant of the requirements for dance in the formal curriculum. This study seeks to offer a way to address these issues. In my research, I have reflected on some of the educational and social factors that I believe are challenging dance education in these schools. I have conducted a Qualitative Action Research with an Auto Ethnographic, Self Study approach using the Living Theory Methodology as a point of departure. I have used my knowledge of flamenco and dance education to open the ‘flamenco box’ in order to introduce it to mainstream dance education in South Africa. I have come to term my approach ‘flamenco as educational’. In accordance with the Living Theory Methodology I include personal and educational aims and values and through rhythm and flamenco dance reflect on the interconnectedness of existence. I use critical reflection to engage with the issues I observed influencing dance education in a multicultural learning environment. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Edgewood, 2010.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Mus.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1996.

Doctorat en sciences psychologiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The challenges of giving and receiving feedback are regular topics in the popular and business press. This widespread interest in and use of feedback is based upon an assumption that receiving feedback will result in improved performance. A review of the literature indicates that the reality is more complex and that while some feedback does improve performance, much does not. This study explored the use of a feedback protocol, adapted from the world of dance, used by students and faculty in a Master of Arts in Teaching program to provide feedback on student practice teaching sessions. Through focus groups, document review and in-depth interviews with ten of the faculty and students involved, this study sought to understand how participants experienced learning the protocol, in what ways they perceived it to be different from previous experiences of feedback, and how they described the impact of this feedback process on their teaching practice. In analyzing the data resulted in three prominent themes emerged: well qualified and experienced teacher-educators underwent significant learning through engaging with the inquiry-based protocol, the teachers and students in this study found the protocol to be fundamentally different from even the most well-intentioned approaches they had experienced in the past, and the protocol alleviated many of the problems of unequal power present in other feedback experiences described by the participants.