CHANGING TERTIARY DANCE EDUCATION: THE BACHELOR'S PROGRAMME IN DANCE PEDAGOGY AT STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS, 2020 - 2023
The aim of this exposition is to give you an overview of the process of changing the Bachelor'sProgramme in Dance Pedagogy at Stockholm University of the Arts 2020 - 2023. It guides you through the phases of the change project, highlights important documents governing and forming the changes made, and links to research that was conducted during the project period and that deepened the knowledge created through the change process. As I write these lines, the implementation of the change project's aims is still underway. It is also I, Camilla Reppen, the project leader of this process, that has created this exposition, which is why it is, at best, one partial account of what shaped and directed the process. It was nevertheless an ambitious effort to work collaboratively in conducting a major change in higher dance education. I credit my colleagues for doing the work of imagining new futures for dance education and making needed changes in practice.
During the years 2020 - 2023, the Bachelor'sProgramme in Dance Pedagogy at Stockholm University of the Arts, Sweden, went through a major restructuring leading to an updated program, on demand by students and staff. Our ambition has been to work closely together to imagine, create and implement an updated version of the curriculum, and to address the challenges that were identified as a starting point for the change project:
Structural racism,
High work and study burden, a lot of administration, little time for development and reflection,
A separation between theory and practice, and
A paradigm shift in the field of dance pedagogy.
Phases in the change project:
Project planning
Landscape mapping of dance pedagogical practices in contemporary times
Student perspectives
Educational plan
Course development
Communication, admission, start new program & iterations
Summary
The change project has met several challenges along the way. To name a few: Our department's leadership changed five times during the project period, and the project group's constitution changed more than three times with different directives for the aim and scope of the project depending on the leadership. Resources in terms of time given to staff for taking part in the change project, decision-making mandate and budget have also been scarce. Despite these issues, we have managed to continue with the change project and create a new curriculum. The future will tell if and how our ambitions will be realized.
The change project started with a project planning phase, defining the change project in its entirety. The assignment for the project planning was described in a project plan written by the dean at the time. It was based on the challenges that sparked the initiation of the change project. Work done by consultants on anti-racism during autumn of 2019 also laid the ground for the project planning. Read the Higher Education Ordinance (1993:100) about degree objectives for bachelor's degrees in Sweden, that also guided our work.
The project planning phase ended with a comprehensive action plan that described the idea and phases for the whole change project.
During autumn 2021 all design principles and insights gained through landscape mapping and workshopping with students and staff were developed into a draft for a new educational plan with course structure and material for decision making. This was presented to the board for education and research at Stockholm University of the Arts in December 2021. Read the new educational plan, approved autumn 2022, and the background material in the documents to the right.
Parallel to this process an (un-)conference was initiated, developed and held: Decolonizing tertiary dance education: Time to act collaboratively hosted by Stockholm University of the Arts, Department of Dance Pedagogy and Department of Dance (Sweden), and Makerere University, Department of Performing Arts and Film (Uganda). Find out more about the un-conference by clicking on the illustration below.
After the project planning phase, our first step was to listen into the field’s concerns and ideas about dance education today. We scanned the field for signals of change and created a collaborative map of dance pedagogical practices in contemporary times. What signals of change were appearing in the dance educational field? Where are we headed in the future? We asked students, staff, alumni and other colleagues in our field to collaborate with us in creating this map. Below you find examples of collected signals of change on scan cards made by staff, students and other respondents invited to join this landscape mapping. See also a presentation of our work in progress at Stockholm University of the Arts Research week 2021 in the pdf to the right.
The collection we managed to create was not exhaustive of signals of change in dance pedagogical practices at the time, but it gave a picture of what the respondents picked up. 140 scan cards documenting signals of change in dance pedagogical practices were collected and analyzed.
We also asked our consultants on anti-racism to suggest what to look for, and their input was to search for signals of change relating to representation and cultural appropriation, dance styles, genres, status and hierarchies, norm critical and anti-racist perspectives in teaching dance, norm critical and anti-racist perspectives in teaching dance teachers and norm critical perspectives and power hierarchies in general.
For this phase, the project group had changed, and we were now a new group re-orienting ourselves towards the continuation of the project.
A challenge in phase three of the change project had been identified as involvement of student voices and perspectives in the development of the new BA. Student perspectives and voices had a straightforward way of expression in previous phases of the change project through the documentation of signals of change on scan cards. A suitable platform for student voices and perspectives had not yet been established for the change project's continuation. Apart from the engagement of a student representative that was finally appointed for the project group, this challenge was something we needed to address further and more sincerely. It was decided that we should do a series of workshops during spring of 2021 to invite students to dialogue about ideas and questions that had been voiced concerning the new curriculum.
Below you can read the documentation from the student workshop series. The work with involvement of student perspectives in the new curriculum was also explored in a chapter in the anthology edited by Karen Schupp (2023): Futures of Performance - The Responsibilities of Performing Arts in Higher Education (link through illustration to the right).
The analysis process of all collected scan cards consisted of the following steps:
During a workshop with the staff at the Department of Dance Pedagogy we looked at the collection of scan cards through a process of lateral thinking.
The students were invited through digital platforms to comment on the scan cards on what they saw and didn't see in the collection. Unfortunately, we didn't get any answers from students on the digital platforms.
Our consultants on anti-racism were also invited to analyze the scan cards for decolonizing potentials.
The project group analyzed the collection of scan cards specifically for decolonizing potentials and challenges as well as through other perspectives such as competences, places/contexts/fields, perspectives on knowledge, possible frameworks for the future program and what was not in the data collection.
The summary of all of this was presented in a report to the leadership group of the Department of Dance Pedagogy, 31st of January 2021 (which temporarily acted as leadership of the department at the time). The report summarized the insights gained from scanning and analyzing dance pedagogical practices in contemporary times. The insights were articulated in terms of:
Design principles to help guide the development of the Bachelor'sProgramme in Dance Pedagogy.
Three suggestions for potential structure of the future program. These three suggestions could be considered scenarios of overarching program structure and reflected three different approaches to the scale of the change we aimed for; pragmatic, progressive or radical change, respectively.
What was missing in the collected data and what challenges were identified going forth.
Suggestions for internal development and tasks we needed to take on as staff.
The analysis also resulted in a research article (click on illustration to the left) about decolonizing potentials and challenges identified in the collection of scan cards.
