Towards a socially just dance curriculum entitlement

The paper begins by drawing upon research to understand the genealogical position of dance within the school curriculum as a new ‘entitlement’ for all young Australians. Whilst dance is included within the Australian curriculum it has been historically marginalised as a ‘soft’ subject within curriculum hierarchy. This low position in the curriculum order has been questioned, with assertions that dance requires a high level of embodied intelligence not usually recognised by education systems. Ball’s (1993) analytic framework for policy-making has been utilised to explore the context of influence through a genealogy of the dance curriculum; the context of policy text production through the process of writing about Dance for the Arts Shape paper in the Australian Curriculum; and the context of policy practice through a case study of pre-service teachers’ lived experiences of dance in school. The findings revealed a series of complex factors which have impacted upon the implementation and practice of dance in schools including the relationship between teacher control, disciplinary power and student agency; the impact of dance competitions and their influence on the perceptions of dance; the interests of diverse faiths and cultures as well as the potential of dance to support growing interest in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and culture; and the twenty-first century proliferation of dance on screen via new technologies and access to highly sexualised performance are discussed. These factors prompt the need for critical approaches towards developing a more accessible and socially just dance curriculum that is culturally responsive and meaningful for diverse learners.