Let's move: Embodiment, leadership, and dance in education

Everyone can dance. Children have rhythm in their bodies and people have danced since the beginning of time. Dance can be seen as an ever-changing, inclusive, creative, and pleasant phenomenon. Nevertheless, research shows that it can be challenging for young people to develop the embodied practical, pedagogical, and personal leadership skills they will need as teachers. This applies especially to the Nordic countries. Here dance is both an integrated part of physical education (PE) studies at universities and included in the national curricula for elementary schools and high schools. So even if all schools in the Nordic countries must ensure dance teaching, many teachers lack tools for being able to open up this world to children and young people.

This chapter discusses the ways in which realistic, empowering, and challenging courses may advance university students’ dance skills, pedagogic thoughtfulness, and embodied leadership with regard to their roles as future physical education teachers. The teaching methods and the educational work with university students’ embodied leadership may inspire other educational fields and give possible answers to wider educational issues.