Abstract
The author narrates her own journey of becoming, and continuing to become, a dance educator and a feminist, weaving in theory which illuminates the changes in her thinking over time. In the discussion of multiple versions of feminism, she places herself in a category of socialist feminism. At the same time, she notes that deciding on basic positions of belief and value doesn’t necessarily offer clear guidance for personal and professional decision-making, because “most of us have a great deal of inconsistency between what we say we believe and what we do, a conflict we are able to maintain only by not thinking about it too much.” Engaging in a reflective process brings these conflicts to the forefront, the painful process that is necessary to generate growth. To that end, the author critically examines several approaches to teaching dance (traditional dance pedagogy, critical pedagogy, and gender models for pedagogy/creative dance), and their relationship to feminist pedagogies. She then describes and critiques her own developing vision, identifying three key points related to feminist pedagogies:
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Finding one’s own voice and inner authority,
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Cultivating awareness of relationship (with others in class, with one’s own body, between self and world), and
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Responsibility and power for change.
She concludes with the acknowledgement that her goal is not to persuade her students or others to teach as she does, but for educators to engage in ongoing reflection about what they believe and why, and about the consequences of choices they make as persons and as educators.
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Stinson, S.W. (2016). Seeking a Feminist Pedagogy for Children’s Dance (1998, Revised). In: Embodied Curriculum Theory and Research in Arts Education. Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education, vol 17. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20786-5_4
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