Students are involved in numerous types of activities but not everyone is excited when it comes to dance. When introducing a dance unit in physical education, meeting students' needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness can help with motivation and overall participation.

Many graduate dance programmes require a pedagogy course to ensure that graduate students, who are future faculty, have the capacity to successfully educate the next generation of dance practitioners. The majority of graduate dance programmes in the United States prioritise Western theatrical forms, yet increasingly there is a call to decolonise…

Ballet programs were established in universities in the United States as early as the late-1940s, but are generally omitted from the story of dance in American higher education. This essay partially addresses this absence in the literature, speculates about the reasons for ballet's limited legacy in the story of dance in American higher education,…

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the experiences of college dance majors in Texas who have a background in studio dance, competitive dance, or drill team as they navigate the culture of dance in postsecondary education. At this stage in the research, the experience of college dance majors will be generally defined as the…

In this article, two pedagogical approaches intended to foster social inclusion in school-based dance programs are described: inquiry and reverse chronology. The inclusion of inquiry and reverse chronology as featured pedagogies in Queensland, Australia's statewide General Senior Dance Syllabus is discussed, including the combined use of these…

Little is known about how individuals with histories of sexual trauma experience dance in non-clinical settings. Dance educators outside of the clinical sphere, such as in dance studios and higher education dance programs, may lack knowledge surrounding how the experience(s) of sexual trauma can alter one's movement and involvement in the dance…

Postsecondary dance programs in the United States have been called upon to reconsider their curricula and pedagogical approaches in relation to racial equity. Historically students enter university with the belief that ballet is the foundation of dance, which is devaluing to dance forms outside ballet. As academia looks to build more inclusive…

In the fall of 2012, the University of Tampa dance program proposed its first dance major. The vision was to build a unique curriculum that would strengthen our approach to teacher training and offer the tools to teach a wide variety of populations. Much of the inspiration for this approach came from our training with Anne Green Gilbert, the…

This research explores the question: How do students describe their own sensemaking practices in the postsecondary modern dance classroom? Based on semi-structured interviews with three postsecondary dance students at the first author's institution, this article presents individual accounts that capture students' perceptions of making sense of new…

The COVID-19 pandemic raised concerns that academic skills would wither away during the lockdown and with it, social-emotional skills. This is assumed to be as true for neurotypical students as for neurodiverse ones. When students return to their schools, how will they function again in their social environment? The key to addressing the…

In an attempt to respond to the calls for dance educators to explore alternatives to harmful authoritarian teaching practices, we propose that one such route forward is an Activist Approach to teaching, which was originally developed in physical education contexts as a student-centered, inquiry-based approach that attends to issues of embodiment…

Choreography classes rooted only in modern/post-modern/contemporary dance (hereafter referred to as contemporary dance ), fail to provide racial equity to today's college students. Dancers with backgrounds in forms other than contemporary dance such as hip-hop, salsa, kathak, etc., must learn a new set of movement principles and aesthetic values…

This practice-based article illustrates how dance education pedagogies can help refugee youth adjust to new settings. To support refugee youth in narrating aspects of belonging in their everyday lives, this article offers pedagogies for creative movement that unfold through multiple stages. As developed in the first author's dissertation study and…

Along with issues of leadership in the academy at large and as related to US-American politics, such as academic freedom and the corporatization of the American university, particularities of academic dance provide a nuanced view of dance leadership in US postsecondary institutions. A dominant culture of overwork, lack of awareness and respect of…

This study employed a research and development method to design courses that enhance creative dance skills for students in Mathayomsuksa 1 (typically aged 12-13 years). Divided into four phases, the study used background information and input from students and teachers to design a dance course that addressed the neglect of Thai culture in the…