‘There is no right or wrong way': exploring expressive dance assignments in physical education

Background: Research has indicated that an aesthetic perspective on movement is lacking in physical education and that exploratory teaching assignments are rare.Purpose: The aim of the paper is to explore how PE teachers approach the issue of teaching expressive dance and which learning processes students are involved in while dancing.Participants, research design and data collection: Sixty-eight students from three different secondary school classes and four PE teachers at one municipal school in Sweden participated in a pedagogical intervention. A dance education unit built around Rudolf Laban’s framework of movement was video recorded. Careful attention was paid to ethical considerations.Data analysis: Using Dewey’s transactional perspective as a holistic starting point contributed to dissolve the dualism between individuals and the environment (1949/1991). The analysis was informed by practical epistemology analysis Wickman, P.-O., and L. Östman. 2002. “Learning as a Discourse Change: a Sociocultural Mechanism.” Science Education 86 (5): 601–623, where the terms gaps, relations and encounters were applied to distinguish various types of transactions. The concept of risk Biesta, G. 2013. The Beautiful Risk of Education. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers was utilised to explore how teachers’ pedagogical methods interacted with the environment in the pedagogical intervention.Findings: Most transactions occurring during the dance unit were interpreted as narrow transactions, meaning that the students’ actions followed responses to the teachers’ initiation of a dance assignment. Expanded transactions occurred when the students were given the opportunity and responsibility to find their own solutions to dance assignments. This is interpreted as leading to an expanded purpose, which involves new ways of moving. Interrupted transactions, i.e. when actions were stopped and no encounters occurred, were observed in the form of students hesitating or avoiding participation. Teaching methods involving a certain degree of risk enable creative and non-predetermined movements. The use of unfamiliar music avoided a reproduction of stereotypical dance styles. Dimmed lighting in the sports hall and the opportunity to work in separate rooms helped the students negotiating environmental risks by attending to the organisation and aesthetics of the space.Conclusions: Expressive dance assignments can take teaching in PE in new and expanded directions. The teachers programmed gradually more risks into their lessons, which in line with Biesta’s understanding (2013) enabled the students to explore new and unpredictable movements. The students developed new ways of expressing themselves and were able to focus on the meaning of the movements. Expressive dance assignments are well suited to an exploratory method of teaching and this interplay can challenge existing logics of competition and ranking in PE.