As dance is a subsidiary element within the compulsory physical education (P.E.) curriculum in England at Key Stages One to Three, many boys reported that their first experiences of dance were within these lessons. What then, did they make of these potentially formative encounters? Analysis suggests that these dance lessons did little to inspire them to pursue the art form; tuition was described among other things as “boring”, “basic” and not “proper dance”. I contend that such views arise for two main reasons; first, an ignorance of the philosophical tradition from which dance in education emanates; and second, a misplaced expectation by some boys that curriculum dance should replicate only dance styles found in popular culture and media, especially urban dance including breaking, hip-hop, street etc.
More significantly though, participants reported that most of their male peers resisted engaging fully with dance at school. As I suggest below, this antipathy to dance is principally underpinned by a regulatory gender regime rooted in both a fear
asked to reflect on his experience of dance at school, Jacob (11) commented not untypically:
Everyone thought it was more of a girls’ thing, to dance, more than a boys’, so the boys didn’t take part as much, they just dossed around a bit. They didn’t try their best and they weren’t focused … the girls got higher grades when we were graded.
Jacob’s account draws attention to the gender boundary maintenance strategy
employed by male classmates who “didn’t try their best” and so underachieved in the subject. The latter is a pertinent illustration, in a school context, of what Paechter describes as a “mutually observing panoptic gaze in communities of
masculinity and femininity practice” (Paechter, 2007, p.38), whereby the regulatory force of the gaze is exerted to promote conformity of group practice and its norms. As a relational construct, with masculinity viewed in opposition to femininity and the
latter denigrated as inferior, Jacob’s transcript implies a fear of ‘Othering’ (Paechter,
1998), a fear which deters boys from engaging in gender-transgressive behaviour, such as being seen to actually enjoy dance. This is not new of course; it was a strategy I had employed decades before, but its longevity is both disappointing and
indicative of its seeming entrenchment in children’s gender relations.
However, a fear of failure could also account for boys’ disengagement with dance.
Confirming earlier research (e.g. Francis, 2000; Frosh et al., 2002), Jackson found that young people “do not pressure each other to perform well academically”
(2006b, p.60), and that in effort to be cool and popular, boys (and girls) “must display a certain nonchalance about academic work”. However, Jackson’s analysis of
interview data concludes that, “[t]here was a palpable fear of academic failure in the
accounts of most pupils” and a concern not “to look stupid academically in front of
their peers” (Jackson, 2006b, p.60). While boys would not regard dance as an
‘academic’ subject, they could, nonetheless, still experience a fear of failure, of being ‘beaten’ by other boys (or worse still, girls), since dance as a visual, embodied
medium can make it difficult for pupils to hide their lack of interest or skill in the subject. Aden, a male dancer teacher explained it thus:
I see this all the time. Boys are fearful of dance since it exposes them to all
sorts of vulnerabilities. There’s really nowhere to hide. I often think it’s easier to slide into obscurity if you’re sitting behind a desk writing a history essay, or
doing some algebra, because if you can’t do those things you can keep your head down and pretend you can. But not so with dance. It’s visual and immediately obvious… and kids can be cruel so I, as a teacher, have to be on the alert all the time. A lot of boys don’t engage fully withdance when they’re
in class – too many preconceptions and insecurities - but I bet many of them
dance in their bedrooms when no one’s watching.
A further account of boys’ reluctance to dance was provided by Linda, a school
teacher (and mother of a male dancer), who commented:
I remember a boy in my school having a meltdown and crying
because he was going to dance. Nobody was going to make him do a dance lesson! And yet by the end of it he was actually quite good. His perception of dance was the classical ballet type thing that his sisters
had done, and he wasn’t doing it.
The potent effect of the discourse that posits dance as a ‘feminine’ pursuit was pertinent in this case since the boy’s sisters had participated in extra-curricular ballet lessons. Thus, fearful of breaching the bounds of normative masculinity and of comparison with his sister, this young pupil (Year Two) also exemplified the salience and consequences of (in)appropriate articulations of taste in the lives of some young children. As such, not only does it resonate with Cann’s findings on the
13 to 16, (Cann, 2013), but it also reminds us that taste’s role in the discursive, regulatory (re)production of gender starts much earlier than in youth.
I was reminded of this while working on a research project entitled, “How Gender
Matters to Children and Young People Living in England” (Bragg et al., 2017), commissioned by the Office for the Children’s Commissioner for England to
research young people’s experiences of gender. It found, among other things, that despite children’s and young people’s commitment to gender equality, diversity and
the rights of sexual minorities, in practice, gender norms and expectations continue to regulate their experiences of their body, appearance, objects and activities. This finding reaffirmed our knowledge that gender binaries are often strongly felt and upheld in childhood, particularly as they entangle with sexuality (Renold, 2005; Paechter & Clark, 2007, 2015; Rysst, 2013). Thus, Chapter Seven explores how boys’
taste articulations in dance (i.e. their choice of genre) were often found to function as a recuperative strategy for their masculinity and/or heterosexuality.
With regard to their choices of dance genre(s), as explicated previously, I found that urban dance was the most popular option for boys taking dance examinations in private-sector dance schools. Clearly though, this luxury of choice was not available to pupils in secondary schools; instead, as I explain in the following section, pupils were usually taught a form of modern educational or contemporary dance, which most found uninspiring.