Editorial

Welcome to this issue of Research in Dance Education that is rather like a special issue as it is devoted to a collection of articles on working with young children, pedagogies and practice. Children should have opportunities to play, be creative and develop their physicality. Physical and movement development, optimum early achievement and creativity enable physical, neuromotor, sensorimotor, movement co-ordination and control, social, emotional and cognitive skills to develop. Children encounter and experience the world and the joy of movement through their bodies and should be given time to be active, explore, investigate and play through movement and dance. The importance of enabling, knowledgeable adults should not be underestimated as they can fuel a lifelong love of movement and dance. This issue includes qualitative and quantitative studies from Germany, Poland, Sweden, Greece and Ireland.

I open this issue with An evaluation study on the embedding of reflective practice in the further education programme KigaDance for nursery teachers, by Claudia Steinberg and Helena Rudi. This article discusses the importance of research-informed practice and theory-practice links in the context of a further education contemporary dance programme called ‘KigaDance’, for nursery teachers in Germany. The research used observations, interviews and questionnaires across 15 months with 12 nursery teachers and revealed challenges related to participants being able to make theory-practice connections. The importance of reflection was considered to be most meaningful for the participants in developing their practice.

Next, Ewa Polak and Bernadetta Wojtun-Sikora in their article, Changes in motor skills among early school aged girls under the influence of regularly practiced dance, examine the level, dynamics and direction of changes in the development of motor skills among girls aged 7–10 years that regularly practiced dance in Poland. The experimental group consisted of 192 girls attending dance classes at schools and children’s dance groups but the study involved 357 girls overall. The physical fitness level was assessed by seven trials from the Eurofit test battery that allowed to determine the level of balance, speed of upper limb movement, flexibility, explosive strength of the lower limbs, static hand strength, strength endurance of the abdominal muscles and agility. Measurements were carried out twice with a 9-month interval during one school year. Test scores were used to determine profiles of motor skill levels for a group of dancing girls, standardised against the control group. The dynamics of changes were determined on the basis of percentage indicators for relative increments. The frequency of changes between measurements was expressed as the number of subjects in percentages. The findings suggest that the girls participating in dance presented a higher level in six motor skills and changes in their physical fitness were more dynamic. Statistically significant increases were found for balance, flexibility, static hand strength and agility. This is an interesting, quantitative study with primary-aged children that is raising awareness of the potential of dance as a way to support children’s motor development.

Somatic movement literacy and embodied cognition, that is when one is literate in Body, making meaning from somatic experiences, is the focus of the next article by Alexia Buono, Fostering somatic movement literacy with young children. The article explores the lived experiences of three young children in their pre-school mindful movement classes and the use of a framework of somatic movement literacy developed by Paul Linden. Methods of arts-based research are utilised such as phenomenological responses, bodily writing, Laban Movement Analysis. Findings reveal that somatic movement literacy had a positive impact and enabled the children to feel a sense of ownership, increased body awareness as well as social and physical skill development. It is suggested that young children should not be under-estimated as they are capable of understanding who they are, what is happening internally and externally through movement and bodily learning, and how their lives are interconnected with others. The next article ‘We put on the music and then the children dance’ – Swedish preschool teachers’ dance educational experiences by Martha Pastorek Gripson, Anna Lindqvist and Tone Pernille Ostern is focused on Swedish preschool teachers’ work with and their understanding of teaching dance. The findings show that early childhood teachers are child-centred in their approach and value children as co-creators in dance. However, there were challenges regarding the use of dance specific knowledge and choreographic tools. The teachers also lacked their own bodily knowledge.

A dance programme that included a combination of Greek dances and Laban’s movement concepts was specifically designed to improve young children’s balance: A Greek traditional dance program for improving balance of young children by Loukia Kapodistria and Dimitris Chatzopoulos. Prior to and after the intervention, the children were assessed in static balance (one leg stance), dynamic balance and the jump-landing test. It is suggested that the children that had engaged in dance performed significantly better in dynamic balance and peak-to-peak amplitude of Center of Pressure (CoP) in the mediolateral direction and total excursion of the CoP. There were no significant differences of the CoP displacement in anteroposterior direction and the jump-landing-test. It is argued that dance should be part of the physical education curriculum.

I conclude this issue with an article that explores the Irish national curriculum where dance is part of Physical Education and the importance of arts partnerships: Facilitating dance in general education through the arts-school partnership: a case study of Ballet Ireland’s primary school program by Rhona Dellea. The work advocates dance for its aesthetic and cultural potential as well as its health and wellbeing benefits and argues for arts partnerships between dance organisations and schools as a way to support aesthetic and cultural dance education. A case study of an arts-school partnership established by Ballet Ireland in a Dublin primary school is presented with a focus on the responses from the students and teachers.

I am sure you will find this issue stimulating and see the possible applications of the research to a wide range of ages and stages.