Playful Movements in a Choreographic Perspective: Design-based Research on Dance and Movement Practices in Social Education

This dissertation results from a PhD (co-)financed project between DPU/Aarhus University and VIA University College with support from the LEGO Foundation's Playful Learning Research grant. The PhD project can be described as a research project in education studies on playful movement environments in the Danish BA degree program in Social Education. The Danish Bachelor’s Program in Social Education (The Danish Pedagogue Education) educates professionals (pædagoger in Danish) to practice, develop, and facilitate learning in, for example, daycare centers, where play and a child’s perspective are emphasized. In this dissertation, I examine and analyze the role of the body and movement in being playful – particularly focusing on aspiring pedagogues. The dissertation includes empirical studies in the form of design experiments on movement practices as part of pedagogue education. My background as a dancer and choreographer has influenced my interactions with the education program, play research, and education studies and has helped me develop a choreographic approach to understanding and realizing the movements of play. The dissertation contributes a previously undescribed dimension of playful higher education as a field of research and, more broadly, contributes new insights into dance and play studies. Based on the overall findings, the dissertation shows that daring to be a playful body along with others in an educational context is of great importance to social communities and can be fostered through the design of choreographies in which the participants are imaginatively exposed to play. Understanding the value of unexpected, disturbing, or sometimes hardly noticeable playful action can serve as a stepping stone, helping teachers and aspiring pedagogues facilitate development, learning, and care.