‘We put on the music and then the children dance’ - Swedish preschool teachers’ dance educational experiences

ABSTRACT

This article investigates and discusses Swedish preschool teachers’ work with and understanding of teaching dance. Preschool teachers should teach aesthetic expressions such as dance, according to the curriculum. This study depicts how preschool teachers, in semi-structured group interviews in 18 preschools, describe their work with teaching dance.

The results show that early childhood teachers are well prepared for and focused on all children, and let them influence the dance education. They are flexible, oriented towards each child’s needs, regard children as competent co-creators, and they cooperate with colleges to inspire each other. However, the respondents rarely mention their own bodily involvement when dance is taught in their preschool. They have difficulties in picturing dance specific knowledge, separated from other learning areas, and many also state that choreographic material seems frightening to them. The lack of own bodily knowledge and choreographic tools is discussed in relation to children’s possibilities to develop dance knowledge in their preschools.

KEYWORDS:

• Aesthetic approaches to learning
• Dance Education
• Embodied pedagogy
• Narrative inquiry
• Preschool education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. https://www.artsequal.fi/

2. A popular Swedish ready-made instructional movement program

3. See, for example https://www.dancemagazine.com/are-college-curriculums-too-white-2645575057.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Martha Pastorek Gripson

Märtha Pastorek Gripson, PhD in Research on Arts education, is a Senior Lecturerin pedagogical work at the Department for Pre-School and School Teacher Education, University of Borås. Her research focus on discourses on gender, dance education and syllabi documents. She is a former dance teacher, primary and preschool principal and the head of a Municipality Art and Culture school. She has worked with dance in a variety of settings such as special education, preschools, primary and secondary school, extracurricular activity and as a course leader in the preschool teacher education. She has been engaged in the Swedish section of Dance and the Child International and involved in different advisory boards on dance related issues in the Swedish Teacher union.

Anna Lindqvist

Anna Lindqvist, PhD in Educational Work, is a senior lecturer at the Department of Applied Educational Science, Umeå University, Sweden. Her research focuses on dance in preschool and primary school. She combines research with the appointment as a Deputy Dean at Umeå School of Education, Umeå University.  She is a board member of The Swedish National Dance in Schools Institute with the mission to support and inspire dance in preschools and schools. She is also a board member of tepe, Teacher Education Policy in Europe. In her spare time she works as a dance teacher at Balettakademien, Umeå.

Tone Pernille Østern

Tone Pernille Østern, with a Dr. of Arts in Dance from the Theatre Academy/University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland, is a Professor in Arts Education with a focus on Dance at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She is active as artist/researcher/teacher, with a special interest in socially engaged art, dance in dialogue with contemporary contexts, choreographic processes, performative research, and bodily learning. She is Editor-in-chief for the peer-reviewed journal Dance Articulated. In 2019-20 she was appointed by the NorwegianDirectorate for Education and Training as expert member in the national curriculum renewal committee for the study program Music, dance, drama in Upper Secondary School. https://www.ntnu.edu/employees/tone.pernille.ostern; www.dance-company.no