Chapter 5 Perceptions of Difference and Equality
5.4 Diminishing Differences: “We do not Say it out Loud”
5.4.1 Introduction
The previous section identified that the QOED teachers generally perceive differences between leaners as a deficit, measuring the learners against each other and against presumed norms for a dancer, resulting in perceptions of hierarchies among learners. This ranking of learners presents a tension within an era of educational reform in which teachers are aspiring to treat students equitably and maintain an equality-based value system for the teaching of creativity through dance.
This section therefore explores how QOED teachers attempt to resolve this tension, not by valuing differences and promoting them as possibilities for creative action, but by seeking to
diminish the appearance of differences. This involves various actions, including peer-support, versatile assessment criteria and the streaming of students into classes according to their perceived value. The basis for such streaming reverts to the two standard criteria in tertiary dance education in China: the physical appearance and technical competence of the learner.
Throughout their reflections on this process, the teachers maintained a sense that, when discussing learners’ attributes, difference can only mean learners are better or worse than each other, as measured against a normative standard for a professional dance performer. My interviewee teachers did not speculate as to whether differences might in and of themselves be valuable attributes among a purposefully diverse cohort of learners.
5.4.2 Teaching Strategies: “Play to Their Strengths”
For some of my interviewees, the identification of differences among learners presented a rationale to advance peer learning. The fostering of peer relationships was framed within the conceptualisation of cooperative learning (Nuthall, 1997), in which learners perceived to be more advanced are sought to mentor learners perceived to be less advanced. As one
interviewee explained,
When I meet students who are especially uncoordinated and slow to learn, I will pay special attention to him/her, and I encourage him/her to be confident to dance, which is very important ... then I will assign a student with a good professional dance trained student to teach him after classes.
Concerned for the confidence of the learner, the teacher here pairs the learner with a student considered to be more advanced, so as to provide extra mentoring for the learner. Such cooperative learning was popularised in the 1980s as a means by which students identified as less advanced would be coached by students considered to be more advanced, thus enhancing the comprehension of the former and helping the latter to consolidate their knowledge
through the process of reflecting on this knowledge and articulating it to others (Slavin, 1995). It is worth distinguishing this process from actually learning how to collaborate, as it is often assumed that this model also supports learning in collaboration (Hennessy &
Murphy, 1999). Within the context of this chapter’s core argument, it can further be argued that the goal of such peer-learning activity is to reduce differences in capability between learners. This aligns with the deficit perception of learners outlined above, in which teachers tend to prioritise students’ inadequacies and aim to address and resolve such differences (Smit, 2012).
Another teacher argued that a sense of equality among the learners can be fostered through the presentation of alternate assessment criteria. She suggested that the more theoretical dimensions of a course can allow learners perceived to have less competence in performance to have their skills acknowledged in other areas of the dance curriculum. As she explained,
My course is quite special, there is always a class that can let them play to their
strengths. For example, some students may not dance well in professional courses, but they may have a good expression ability in teaching method classes, or they may have a clear-thinking logic to answer questions in theory classes.
In this reflection, it is clear that the teacher is aware of individual differences among students and strives to create opportunities for them to excel in areas where they have strengths. In so doing, she seeks to promote an equality among the learners: by providing opportunities for students to play to their strengths, a teacher can foster a sense of self-efficacy and motivation among students, which can enhance their engagement and achievement in the course
(Harackiewicz et al., 2000). This approach is in line with the strengths-based perspective that originated from the field of social work, as a departure from a traditional focus on deficits and dysfunction (Gering et al, 2018). This might also be interpreted from Yin Cai Shi Jiao in Confucianism, highlighting how to cultivate students by focusing on their identified strength or aptitude. Such an interpretation contrasts, however, with the understanding of yincaishijiao (因材施教) previously presented in this thesis (see Section 2.5.2), which is centred on
students’ diverse interests, not perceived differences in capabilities between students. In the context outlined above, this strengths-based practice aims to highlight students’
competencies, resources and values, but only as a means of compensating for perceived deficits in other areas (Shaima & Narayanan, 2018). In other words, this approach retains the view that differences are binary, indicating difference means that students are either better or worse according to a specific standard, or in comparison to other learners: they are just better or worse in varied areas of the curriculum. This perspective does not consider how learners might be valued in diverse ways according to the same phenomenon (e.g., diverse
interpretations of “a good dancer” or “a good teacher”), as it is assumed to be universally agreed that “some students may not dance well”. Students appear to have little choice in this process, as their identified strength or weakness is considered inherent, defining what the students are, rather than promoting the sense of their “state of becoming” (see Section 2.4).
5.4.3 Institutional Strategies: “Good and Bad Classes”
The idea that differences between learners inherently meant students are better or worse further prompted institutions to try to render these differences less visible, through placing learners in groups based on perceived similarities against an assumed standard, so that the differences between learners would be less apparent. While the desire to remain equitable meant that such grouping was not overtly identified, it nevertheless appeared to be an open secret. As one interviewee explained, the idea that these streamed classes do not form a hierarchy creates a tension, with a desire to balance inclusion with elitism:
All the teachers and the students know which class is good and which one is bad, but we do not say it out loud. In the class, the teachers will say that ‘all of the four classes are the same.’ Actually, the teachers and the students all understand, because it is too obvious.
While trying to create an equal and inclusive environment by emphasising in front of the learners that “all of the four classes are the same”, students are nevertheless selected based on a perception that they are better or worse. As with the hierarchy of differences discussed in the previous section, the physical appearance and technical capabilities of the learners appeared to be the most significant criteria for selection. As one interviewee reported,
The quality of students (good or bad) is divided according to their body condition.
Class 6 is a good class with tall students. Class 7 is a good class with short students, and Class 8 is a bad class.
This body condition reinforces particular physical ideals of tall and thin, with secondary concerns for physical coordination, flexibility and strength. This means that even in the case of a student with dance qualities and technical capabilities such as coordination, musicality, strength and flexibility, if they are perceived to be outside of the parameters considered aesthetically essential in the appearance of a professional dancer (in terms of bodily proportions), they would be placed within a lower group than an individual with less
technical capability but more aesthetically valued proportions. This is justified as a means of enhancing teaching efficiency, as articles published in the Journal of Beijing Dance Academy advocate that students enrolled at different levels makes teaching difficult (Liu, 2019). In the context of the wider Chinese education system, such categorisation of students into classes based on perceived standards has been argued to improve teaching efficiency and to achieve the goal of cultivating the greatest number of high-scoring students in the examination-
oriented education system (Zhang, 2015). In some contexts, other models for dividing classes are proposed by those outside of dance education, but the aesthetic hierarchy of body
conditions remains the dominant logic:
Our university is still traditional. It depends on the physical conditions of the students to classify the students. We do not know how to divide classes in other ways. The dean had proposed to divide classes according to their literacy grades, and I do not know why it was rejected.
This interviewee identified a sense that for dance educators, the selection based on physical appearance is of particular significance to the study of dance. When a faculty dean (from a non-dance discipline) proposed that the Department of Dance conform to the standard means of grouping students into class levels (grades from non-performance-based subjects), this was not implemented. While the teacher here did not understand why this decision was made, it might be assumed that the ability to select and stream students according to physical
appearance and capability presented the institution with better opportunities to advance elite students within dance competitions and into professional performance careers.
It is important to note that this classifying process is not limited to a particular course or a particular semester. Once established, such groupings remain for all subjects and courses, so that once learners are positioned within a particular class according to their aesthetic potential to be a professional performer, this remains the class for all other lessons in the curriculum.
Moreover, once categorised in these classes, the students generally do not experience opportunities for transition for the entirety of their degrees. As one teacher explained,
Good and bad classes are maintained like this, we do not adjust. If we were to transfer the students from bad class to the good class, should we transfer the students in good classes to a bad class?
As the categorisation is seen as immutable, so too the learner’s potential to be perceived as in a “state of becoming”, as it is limited to the expected parameters of quality within their class group. While this is argued as a means of not diminishing student pride, it nevertheless reinforces an idea that differences, once identified, can be permanent, and the most
appropriate course of action is to keep those differences clustered together so as to maintain a sense of similarity. From a normative standpoint, transitions of students between classes might prompt further differences to emerge, which would problematically disrupt the
expected standards within dance education. For the aspirations of QOED however, streaming
of dance learners into rigidly maintained hierarchies reduces the potential for differences to emerge and grow within class groups. More importantly, this further entrenches the de- valuing of diversity within tertiary dance education. For individual teachers, it can be
challenging to sustain a mindset that values the differences that they observe during particular creative activities, within a wider institutional framework that continually seeks to diminish and conceal differences between learners.
Among the teachers interviewed, it was further argued that the courses that are most difficult to teach are those in which students from different classes are mixed. This occurs not from a deliberate educational intention to explore differences between groups, but as a result of institutional resourcing and timetabling needs. As elucidated by one interviewee, while the timetabling allows for greater uniformity in class composition, this leads to greater variation among learners within classes, which presents new challenges:
Class 5 [students Majored in Dance Studies] is special because there are few girls who have to have class with the students who Majored in Choreography. There are boys and girls in a class who are specifically Majored in Choreography. When they have choreography class, the boys and girls will mix together; but when they have basic training and folk-dance classes, they are separated into different classes according to the same gender. The number of girls who majored in choreography are very few, which cannot reach the capacity of a class. In order to fill the number for the girls, a few girls from class 5 are grabbed to have basic training and folk-dance classes with these girls who majored in choreography together. Due to the girls from class 5 Majoring in Dance Studies not in choreography, their learning state is not good. Thus, class 5 is the worst.
From this teacher’s perspective, when students with different levels of interest and skills are required to learn together, the perceived wide variation in abilities results in a lower
performance in learning. This links back to the previously discussed theorisation, from a teaching-centred viewpoint, that education is more efficient when learners of similar
standards are placed together (Liu, 2019). Given that the key criterion for different classes is physical appearance, it might be questioned why teachers perceive teaching such differently shaped bodies to be so challenging, or how that perception of appearance and the ranking it leads to evokes further complexities in learning for teachers and students. As discussed in the following narrative, this ranking of classes can lead students and teachers to make significant assumptions regarding capability, motivation and engagement with the learning. Of
significance to this thesis however, the teacher’s perspective in the above reflection
emphasises that teaching diverse students presents a greater teaching challenge. It would seem that while an ideal of QOED is to value diversity and generate moments in which difference might emerge, teachers can be predisposed to seeing differences as inherently problematic within a learning context.
The ranking of students according to their perceived physical capabilities and appearance as potential professional dance performers, and positioning them within streamed class groups, leads to further assumptions by teachers as to the learners’ intellectual capabilities,
motivations to learn and engagement with the subject matter. In the following narrative, a QOED teacher reflected on how she manages classes at different levels, based on these assumptions:
I teach four classes at the same time. These classes are divided according to good and bad students. In the classes with good students, I let them use their mobile phones during class to check for pictures in tasks. When they are looking for them, I can give guidance. But in the classes with bad students, phones can’t be used in class. If I let them use them in class, they will scan WeChat and Taobao (social media and
shopping platforms), even in front of me. In the good classes, they are in a better state, and they know they are better.
Within this narrative, the teacher believes that learners’ behaviours can be determined by the class levels in which they are placed, which in turn leads her to reconfigure her teaching methods and allowances within the course. The higher-level classes are perceived to be comprised of “good” learners, whose commitment to study means that they can be trusted to use electronic devices during class to assist their study. The lower-level classes are perceived to be comprised of “bad” learners, whose lack of commitment to learning means that they cannot be trusted to have access to electronic devices during class as they will presumably use these to engage in recreational activities unrelated to the learning. More broadly, this raises issues regarding how the process of selecting and stratifying students within classes, particularly based on physical appearance as a criterion, may present problematic educational behaviours and attitudes for teachers and learners in tertiary dance in China. This narrative emphasises a deficit view of students based on their differences, and challenges educational discourses that would propose more positive reinforcement (Denessen et al., 2020; Gentrup et al., 2020). Of specific relevance to this study, the above quote emphasises how this
perception of difference between groups, and sameness within a group, can prompt a teacher to enforce rules that further inhibit difference from emerging. As shown in the above excerpt,
the teacher determined that members of a certain group will behave in a certain way, and thus implemented rules that appear to sustain and reinforce that particular identity among those learners.
5.4.4 Based on the Background: “It’s Not Fair”
This conception of the overall value of certain students can be pre-determined, based on the type of institution in which they undertook their secondary school education. Among these, the most significant distinction is between students from regular high schools, entering the university programme based on the yikao and gaokao, who are referred to as pugaosheng, and students from pre-professional dance-training arts schools, entering the university based on the yikao and gaokao, who are referred to as yixiaosheng (see Section 2.6.2). For some teachers this background predetermines their value and capability as learners, as one interviewee confirmed,
I think the problem is the background of students…. Students from last year’s class are very logical and active. But this year’s students are very rigid. This year’s students are pugaosheng, whose dancing ability is not very good, and their thinking is rigid.
This way of identifying differences between learners (and thereby establishing their
comparative value) appears to be another unspoken yet familiar phenomenon among tertiary dance teachers. As another interviewee affirmed, “I know that …teachers don’t like
pugaosheng, because we all know each other and chat together”. This appears to extend the sense that differences among students are inherently a problematic concern that needs to somehow be concealed (through streamed classes), so as to not allow the contrasts between perceived good and bad learners to be too visible and demoralising. As the following teacher explained, one of the rationalisations presented for the construction of these more
homogenous classes is that it may avoid the sense of steep hierarchy within a class that would discourage some students from striving to succeed, given the deeply entrenched elitism within dance education in China (Yu, 2018). Learners nevertheless adopt such a self-
perception based on the classes that they are divided into, and teachers acknowledge that the students are very aware of the hierarchy that exists between classes, as exemplified below:
I have taught class 4 and class 5. Class 4 was a good class and class 5 was a bad class.
Class 5 would consider class 4 to be good and they thought themselves to be bad.
They knew the status of each other’s class after the first evaluation. In the first lesson,
I chatted with them when I met them, to try to understand what they think their status is. I thought class 5 students had better personalities than class 4, but students in class 5 directly said, ‘Teacher, class 4 is particularly good. We are not. You see, our
appearance is like this. Most of us are pugaosheng’.
Paradoxically, as can be gleaned from this quote, the teacher’s belief that the learners in the perceived lower class have a particular advantage (their personalities) is challenged by the actual learners in that class. The learners self-identify their own sense of inferiority, which they attribute to their physical appearance, and their pre-existing status as pugaosheng (students from a normal high school, not an intensive dance-training arts school). That the teacher seems to accept this self-determination from the learners further underscores the ways in which a sense of immutable identity is deeply entrenched within the tertiary dance
education system. She went on to explain how she sought to reconcile this unexpected outcome,
I thought class 5 was more active, and class 4 was more quiet. To be honest, I liked class 5 more. Most of the class 4 were yixiaosheng, they were used to the model of professional training. But class 5 was more active, and class 5 preferred to ask questions, such as ‘Why does this pose like this, can I pose like this?’ I thought they were thinking. The students in class 4 did not pay attention to the inspirations I gave them, they only paid attention to what I told them to do and split their legs by 180 degrees.
Within this narrative, the teacher acknowledges that the categorisation of classes can be problematic. Moreover, she identifies the ways in which the selection of classes can conceal the diverse qualities of individual students. She nevertheless tends to see each class as a homogenous group, stereotyping the higher-level class as passive learners (albeit with greater physical capability) and the lower-level class as active learners. This suggests a habitual desire to perceive and identify similarities among learners rather than differences, even in their personalities and learning dispositions.
Another teacher presents a more nuanced perception of the learners, arguing that differences between learners should recognised, regardless of the learning background. In this reflection, she questions the ways that pugaosheng and yixiaosheng (students from normal or intensive dance training high schools) have their learning categories sustained in tertiary education,
Among the students selected … there are pugaosheng but they are very good. Their dance ability is almost as good as yixiaosheng. They are really good. It’s not fair if