What syllabus documents can tell us about the presence and position of dance in Early Childhood Teacher Education: A Swedish perspective

Abstract

This study problematizes becoming early childhood teachers’ possibilities to develop knowledge relevant to teaching dance. The aim was to analyze the presence and position of dance in Swedish early childhood teacher education syllabi. Discourse analysis was used to identify patterns, regularities, hierarchies and gaps in the steering documents. The empirical material consisted of syllabi of twelve Swedish early childhood teacher programs. The results show that according to syllabi, dance as a subject has a rather weak or non-existent position in Swedish early childhood teacher education. Instead, dance often functions as a tool for learning other subjects, e.g. language and mathematics. The concept “aesthetic” was more frequently mentioned in the syllabi, but it did not explicitly explain what dance knowledge was included in the syllabi content, learning outcomes and examination forms. The frequency of dance differed between the syllabi, which might lead to unequal early childhood teacher education. Further, the potentially weak function and position of dance in early childhood teacher education might limit children’s social democratic life, bodily knowledge and experience of mind-body connection in a holistic sense.