“Styla and Ice Creamy Get to Come to Camp!” Cultivating Children’s Civic Capacities With Dance (Poster 36)

• In Event: Sunday Poster Session 7:45 am
  In Poster Session: Early Education and Child Development: Poster Session 2

Abstract

This paper shares findings from a larger study aimed at better understanding how dance education might support children’s budding civic capacities. The paper details a qualitative case study examining and comparing the perspectives of three four-year-olds, one experienced dance teacher, and a researcher. The group's views, specific to the ways in which a summer dance program committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging nurtured children’s “reading” and “writing” development–broadly defined here as receptive and expressive capabilities–alongside their civic agency, are compared. Findings lend support to and expand upon empirically- and theoretically-based positions claiming dance experiences can promote reading comprehension and cultivate civic agency, by demonstrating that young children too, appear to appreciate and benefit from intentionally designed dance experiences.

Author

• Joy Dangora Erickson, Endicott College