Creative Dance as Experiential Learning in State Primary Education: The Potential Benefits for Children

Helen Payne, Barry Costas
2020 Journal of Experiential Education  
In the United Kingdom, creative dance is classified as part of physical education rather than an important core subject. Purpose: Taking the U.K. National Curriculum as an example, the article's primary aim is to examine literature exploring the benefits of creative dance, for children aged 3 to 11 years in mainstream state education, to evaluate whether creative dance can be categorized as experiential learning. Methodology/Approach: The literature review included key words in several
more » ... and arrived at potential benefits which can be framed within experiential learning. Findings/Conclusions: The findings identify benefits of creative dance in socioemotional, arts-based, transferable, embodied, physical, and cognitive learning. Conceptualizing creative dance as experiential learning could support it filling a more central role in the curriculum. Implications: This article recontextualizes the role of creative dance in children's learning through reviewing related literature. Creative dance might play a more central role in the curriculum when the benefits and its process are framed as experiential learning.
doi:10.1177/1053825920968587 fatcat:wdyv43xhinhwvpqery2bll4qbm