Proven experience with higher dance- and music education as case - conditions and challenges

According to Swedish law, higher education shall be based on science or art and proven experience (PE), but research shows that the understanding of PE varies from personal experience to scientific demands for evidence.

A pilot study suggests that university teachers in dance and music base their teaching mainly on their own personal artistic and pedagogical experiences.

The aim of this project is therefore to increase understanding of and prerequisites for developing and applying PE in higher education where bodily knowledge and non-verbal expressions are central.

Research questions:What artistic and pedagogical experiences have influenced university teachers’ teaching of dance and music?What conditions do these teachers believe are necessary for artistic and pedagogical experiences to be shared, scrutinized, and tested collegially?What opportunities and obstacles for the development of subject-specific pedagogical PE have been identified in the project and how can this knowledge contribute to the development of PE in areas of knowledge where non-verbal learning is central?Focus groups are conducted with dance and music teachers who also have an artistic career.

Recorded lesson moments are used as focus material.

Narrative discourse analysis is used to present how the informants relate their teaching to their artistic and didactic experiences.The study results in an inventory of conditions and competencies required for teaching to be based on both art and PE.