Thinking, feeling and relating: young children learning through dance

© 2014 Dr. Janice DeansDance is considered to be central to the development of the young child (Sansom, 2011; Wright, 2003; Schiller & Meiners, 2003; Stinson, 1988), yet playful body-based learning, is often avoided as a learning area by early childhood educators. Framed within socio-constructivist and rights based theory this study investigated how dance enabled young children’s learning and the role of the teacher in enabling this learning. The research adopted a qualitative mixed methods case study methodology (Stake, 2005; Yin, 2003). The participants were twenty, four and five-year old children and their teacher, who was also the researcher. Data was collected over twenty-six weeks and was generated from video recordings, photographs, children’s drawing-tellings (Wright, 2003a, 2003b) and teacher program plans and journal notes. Video recordings and photographic images were transcribed using a number of original analytical tools that supported a systematic and in-depth investigation of young children’s responses to learning through dance and the role of the teacher in enabling this learning. The findings revealed that young children engaged in embodied thinking, playful imaginative problem-solving and aesthetic decision making, whilst developing, through multi-modal semiotic meaning making, a strong sense of self and collective agency. The findings also highlighted a particular pedagogical platform and a range of teaching strategies that supported the establishment of an interest-based socio-constructivist dance curriculum where the voices of children were given an opportunity to be expressed in multiple ways. The results of this study indicate that learning through dance provides young children with an authentic and unique learning modality that supports sophisticated levels of thinking, feeling and relating. This position infers that dance should be recognized for its potential to excite young children’s creative and artistic thinking and their social development, and as such, be represented more broadly in mainstream curriculum. In addition, this thesis recommends a teaching and learning model that recognizes the rights of children to have the opportunity to express their voices through artistic and creative endeavours, of which dance is considered paramount