Difference, Creativity and Collaboration:
Challenges for Teachers of
Quality-Oriented Education Dance in China
Jiahui Liu
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Dance Studies, the University of Auckland, 2024.
Abstract
In the last three decades, the Quality-Oriented Education reforms in China have sought to foster creativity and collaboration as graduate attributes in tertiary education. This has led to the introduction of Quality-Oriented Education Dance (QOED) in 2012. As a new curriculum and teacher-training method, QOED presents an alternative to the deeply entrenched
authoritarian pedagogical model experienced by tens of thousands of tertiary dance students in China each year. The transition of teachers into this new teaching method has been complex however, particularly within an educational landscape that prioritises hierarchies, competition, and conformity. This thesis therefore explores the question: How do the former educational purposes of QOED teachers challenge their current approaches to teaching creativity and collaboration?
This foregrounds the importance of an educational purpose, as a rationalising mandate for teachers that is distinct from what they are teaching and how they are teaching it. If our education is to be emancipatory, then our teaching practices need to be guided by a pragmatic sense of why we are teaching. To explore this sense of educational purpose, this thesis
engages a qualitative method and constructivist theoretical framework, using semi-structured interviews to elicit the teaching narratives and reflections of eight experienced teachers of QOED. Their experiences and perspectives reveal how traces of their former authoritarian educational practices sustain hierarchies, competition and conformity, thereby diminishing the value of diversity and challenging the emergence of collaboration within their classrooms.
These findings emphasise the educational importance of a metacognition of creativity and collaboration, which involves an understanding how difference and diversity underpin collectivised innovation. This metacognition may allow teachers to have a more coherent educational purpose in QOED, and identify when and how the legacy of former educational purposes may inhibit collaboration in the classroom. This research therefore offers valuable insights into current QOED teaching mindsets, which can inform the evolution of dance educator training in QOED.
Acknowledgements
The terms “old Jane” and “new Jane” frequently surfaced during discussions with my
supervisors. The battle within myself symbolised my PhD journey. On one level, by the end, I had undergone a personal transformation; on another level, this transformation was just the beginning. What will I become in the future? That remains uncertain. Will I revert to being the old Jane? Will I evolve into a new Jane shaped by the PhD journey? Or will I emerge as a distinct Jane, vastly different from both the old and new versions? I don’t know. However, what I do know is that I always allow myself to become (difference).
For this journey, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors. First, Professor Nicholas Rowe, I know you like to read words in caps—HUGE THANKS FOR EVERYTHING. Your encouragement and challenging of my ideas and opinions were crucial for my reflection and further thinking. I appreciated your energy. It kept me motivated
throughout. Your jokes, creative games and random discussion topics prompted me to think
“illogically”, a key, I believe, to my ongoing transformation. To paraphrase you, the journey was a happy kind of pain! - thanks to you.
Professor Rosemary Martin, you are my academic idol! Although you embarked on a different kind of journey, you remained with me. Due to COVID-19, social media became our main means of communication, but you continued to provide me with detailed feedback on my writing. You were patient as I voiced my confusion, supporting me by saying “It’s okay for the old Jane to sometimes overshadow the new Jane”. You helped me to grow—I feel lucky to have had you by my side on this journey.
Thank you, Professor Ralph Buck, for accepting the new Jane. When introducing me to others, you would say “Jane was different when she first came, so well-behaved”! Your humour encouraged me to the person I wanted to be in this space. You welcomed me in—
“I need your help”, “join us”—I felt included. Thank you for always supporting me, whether appearing in the new or the old Jane form.
Dear Professor Yisheng Lv, my esteemed supervisor, you were the guiding force that opened the door to my academic journey. Your wisdom and expertise shaped my understanding and ignited my passion for research. I am deeply grateful for the invaluable insights you shared with me, often accompanied by memorable stories from your own educational and teaching
endeavours. Whenever we engaged in video chats, I was filled with a profound sense of security and confidence. I knew I could always rely on your guidance.
I am grateful to all my friends who have been there for me—chatting, sending hugs, reading my writing and providing me with a strong sense of self that kept me motivated throughout this long journey. The support and companionship I have received from the members of the Huizi Dance Group were crucial. Thank you for allowing me to be myself—and embracing my craziness. Love you all.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Beijing Dance Academy and the
University of Auckland for establishing the joint master’s degree project, which provided me with the opportunity to pursue my PhD research after completing a master’s. I am also grateful to the staff and colleagues at the Department of Dance Studies at the University of Auckland for their support, encouragement, resources and opportunities, all of which have been integral to my transformative journey. Furthermore, I would like to express my thanks to Jane Scott for proofreading the final draft of this thesis.
To my interviewees, I extend my heartfelt gratitude for your generosity in sharing your insights, experiences and concerns with me. Your willingness to open up and provide valuable information greatly contributed to this research.
My family, my sources of courage. I wholeheartedly bow down in deep gratitude to my mother, father, aunt, grandmothers, grandfathers, brother and sister. You have always been my pillars of support, enabling me to be who I am and to grow into who I want to become. To my husband, Yao Liu, thank you for your unwavering patience and engaging in discussions with me during times of confusion—and thank you for always believing in me. To my wonderful daughter and son in my life, Maggie Yutong Liu and Lukas Ziye Liu, thank you for your companionship and for always reminding me what it feels like to be a learner and truly alive. During the demanding phases of this transformative journey, you shone brightly.
Table of Contents
Abstract ... 1
Acknowledgements ... 2
Glossary ... 8
Chapter 1 Introduction ... 9
1.1 Words: The Start of a Problem ... 9
1.2 Research Question and Significance ... 12
1.3 An Overview of the Thesis ... 14
Chapter 2 Literature Review ... 18
2.1 Introduction ... 18
2.2 Teaching Purpose ... 19
2.2.1 Researching Teachers’ Questions ... 19
2.2.2 Biesta’s Content, Relationships and Purpose ... 20
2.2.3 QOED as a Minor Pedagogy ... 23
2.3 Teaching Creativity and Collaboration ... 25
2.3.1 The Value of Creativity and Collaboration ... 25
2.3.2 Evolving Understandings of Creativity ... 26
2.3.3 Collaboration as an Interdependent Experience of Creativity ... 29
2.3.4 Creativity and Collaboration as Purposes in Education ... 32
2.4 Teaching Difference ... 36
2.4.1 Difference and Diversity ... 36
2.4.2 Difference and Diversity in Education ... 39
2.4.3 Difference in Creativity Education ... 41
2.4.4 Difference in Dance Education ... 43
2.5 Teaching in China ... 44
2.5.1 The Purpose of Laoshi in China ... 46
2.5.2 Interpretations of Confucianism in Education ... 50
2.5.3 The Imperial Examination System and the Need for Uniformity ... 55
2.5.4 Purposes of Education in China From 1949-1978 ... 58
2.5.5 Purpose of Suzhi Jiaoyu (Quality-Oriented Education) in China Since 1978 ... 59
2.5.6 Conformity, Competition and Gaokao ... 61
2.6 Teaching Dance in China ... 63
2.6.1 Dance Education in Pre-1949 China ... 63
2.6.2 Dance Education in New China (1949) ... 66
2.6.3 Tertiary Dance Education in China ... 68
2.6.4 Quality-Oriented Education Dance ... 70
2.6.5 Creativity and Collaboration in Quality-Oriented Education Dance ... 72
2.7 Conclusion ... 76
Chapter 3 Methodology ... 78
3.1 Introduction: An Evolving Inquiry ... 78
3.2 Theoretical Framework ... 80
3.2.1 Qualitative Research ... 81
3.2.2 Constructivism ... 82
3.3 Method of Data Collection ... 83
3.3.1 Interviewees ... 84
3.3.2 Interviews ... 85
3.3.3 Narrative Inquiry ... 88
3.4 Process of Analysis ... 89
3.4.1 Translation ... 90
3.4.2 Thematic Approach ... 93
3.5 Positions of the Researcher ... 94
3.6 Ethics ... 97
3.7 Research Challenges and Limitations ... 97
3.8 Conclusion ... 100
Chapter 4 Aspirations and Challenges ... 102
4.1 Introduction ... 102
4.2 A Distinctive Educational Purpose: “To Hold Me With Open Arms” ... 102
4.2.1 Introduction ... 102
4.2.2 Questioning Hierarchy: “A Party of Three” ... 104
4.2.3 Prompting not Directing: “A Lot of Space” ... 105
4.2.4 Transforming Relationships: “Without This Sense of Shenduan” ... 106
4.2.5 Peer Relationships: “Learn from Each Other” ... 109
4.2.6 Conclusion ... 110
4.3 A Challenging Environment: “I Appeared Really Naïve” ... 111
4.3.1 Introduction ... 111
4.3.2 Institutional Challenges: “Can We Win With This Piece?” ... 112
4.3.3 Student Expectations and Dissatisfaction: “Whatever…” ... 114
4.3.4 Limitations in Professional Capabilities: “I Felt Completely Stuck” ... 116
4.3.5 Conclusion ... 120
4.4 Conclusion ... 121
Chapter 5 Perceptions of Difference and Equality ... 123
5.1 Introduction ... 123
5.2 Valuing Difference: “Inspiration and Ideas Will Collide” ... 124
5.2.1 Introduction ... 124
5.2.2 Valuing Difference: “Accident or Surprise” ... 125
5.2.3 Different Interpretations: “Grandpa’s Appearance” ... 127
5.2.4 Different Ideas: “Moving Like a Jellyfish” ... 128
5.2.5 Conclusion ... 128
5.3 Difference as Deficit: “Three Long and one Small” ... 129
5.3.1 Introduction ... 129
5.3.2 Acknowledging Difference: “There is Always Dengji” ... 131
5.3.3 Judging Bodies First: “No Shortcomings Except Fat” ... 132
5.3.4 Prioritising Performance: “The Only Dance Profession” ... 133
5.3.5 Predetermined Value: “Pugaosheng or Yixiaosheng?” ... 136
5.3.6 Conclusion ... 138
5.4 Diminishing Differences: “We do not Say it out Loud” ... 138
5.4.1 Introduction ... 138
5.4.2 Teaching Strategies: “Play to Their Strengths” ... 139
5.4.3 Institutional Strategies: “Good and Bad Classes” ... 141
5.4.4 Based on the Background: “It’s Not Fair” ... 145
5.4.5 Conclusion ... 147
5.5 Conclusion ... 147
Chapter 6 Perceptions of Leadership and Collaboration ... 150
6.1 Introduction ... 150
6.2 The Educational Purpose of Group Work: “My Teaching Style is Not Suitable for Everyone” ... 151
6.2.1 Introduction ... 151
6.2.2 Cooperative Learning: “Divide the Big Goal Into Small Goals” ... 152
6.2.3 Learning to Cooperate: “Assign the Roles” ... 154
6.2.4 Learning Collective Productivity: “It Was a Mess” ... 157
6.2.5 Conclusion ... 158
6.3 Leadership and Hierarchy: “Rush to The Front Line” ... 159
6.3.1 Introduction ... 159
6.3.2 Natural Leaders: “Very Top-Notch” ... 160
6.3.3 What Leaders Should do: “Mobilise Everyone” ... 162
6.3.4 Managing Student Leaders: “Do a Better Job” ... 164
6.3.5 Conclusion ... 166
6.4 The Formation of Groups: “Now Quickly and Freely Group by Yourself” ... 167
6.4.1 Introduction ... 167
6.4.2 Arbitrary, Randomised and Incidental: “Rock, Paper and Scissors” ... 168
6.4.3 Purposefully Homogeneous: “The Principle of Proximity” ... 172
6.4.4 Purposefully Heterogenous: “Based on Their Strengths” ... 174
6.4.5 Conclusion ... 177
6.5 Decision-Making in Groups: “Justice and Evil” ... 178
6.5.1 Introduction ... 178
6.5.2 Stimulating Decisions: “Built on This Idea” ... 179
6.5.3 Providing Direction: “I Will Give You a Name” ... 181
6.5.4 Orchestrating Discussion: “Her Idea is Very Good” ... 182
6.5.5 Consolidating Leadership: “Let Her Decide” ... 184
6.5.6 Conclusion ... 186
6.6 Conclusion ... 187
Chapter 7 Conclusion ... 189
7.1 Introduction: Call Back ... 189
7.2 Literature Review: Quality-Oriented Education Dance in Need of a Theoretical Foundation ... 189
7.3 Methodology: The Evolving Inquiry ... 190
7.4 Transformation, Challenges - Complexities ... 192
7.5 Difference is Valuable vs Difference-as-Deficit ... 193
7.6 Diminishing Difference: The Focus of Productivity, Hierarchy and Similarity in Collaborative Work ... 194
7.7 Teaching Someone to Fish: Recommendations for Quality-Oriented Education Dance ... 195
7.8 Future Directions for Research ... 196
7.9 Final Words ... 197
Appendix ... 199
References ... 203
Glossary
Chinese term Definition
gaokao 高考 National College Entrance Examination, which is a crucial standardised examination in China taken by students at the end of their senior high school education (typically around the age of 18) as a requirement for admission into undergraduate programmes at colleges and universities.
keju zhi 科举制 Imperial examination system
laoshi 老师 Teacher
pugaosheng 普高生 Dance students who begin their professional dance training in high school, taking regular dance classes and undergoing intensive training in a short period before taking yikao
rencai 人才 High value graduate, and in this context underscores the learner’s instrumental worth to national aspirations suzhi jiaoyu 素质教育 Quality-Oriented Education
suzhijiaoyu wudao 素质教育 舞蹈
Quality-Oriented Education Dance
wulun 五伦 The five human relations, which refers to the traditional concept in Confucianism that outlines the fundamental social relationships and ethical obligations between individuals
yikao 艺考 Artistic Examination, which refers to the specialised entrance examination in China for students who wish to pursue artistic disciplines, such as music, dance, theatre and visual arts, at tertiary education institutions
yixiaosheng 艺校生 Dance students who start professional dance training in vocational arts schools undergo intensive training courses every day
xuesheng 学生 Student/learner
zhongkao 中考 High School Entrance Examination, which is a
standardised examination in China taken by students at the end of their junior high school education (typically around the age of 15) as a requirement for admission into senior high school
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Words: The Start of a Problem
Words.
As I sit and compose the final draft of my thesis, five years after commencing (including breaks to have a baby, a global pandemic that kept me from both my family and my research site in China, and a major shift in my understandings of dance and education), words seem to be so ridiculous. I am reconstructing this massive journey into a pile of words that might rationalise my realisations during this doctoral journey. But it was words that began this journey. A text message, in fact.
In October 2018, I received a WeChat text from a dance teacher friend at a university in China.
“Jane, please save me!”
“What happened?”
“The curriculum in our university is reforming to focus on the cultivation of students’
independent thinking and creative thinking. I need to teach students to be creative and collaborative in a Quality-Oriented Education Dance (QOED) class.”
“That’s great! Why do you need saving?”
“The reform is good. I had training to teach the QOED class, but the way I was trained is not working in my class. I grouped the students together to create a dance, giving them themes and topics in the class. At the beginning, they felt excited, but later they questioned the differences between this type of dance classes and choreography classes. So, I am really confused. I don’t really know what the difference is. I have to teach four sessions each week and I really do not know what to teach and how to teach.”
This moment stayed with me. My first thought was that if she did not know what to teach, and how to teach it, then that could be easily solved. I could interview some QOED teachers, study their practices and activities, as my PhD project and as a gift to my friend. In October
2018, this felt like a very topical research direction. QOED had been introduced into tertiary education in China six years earlier, as part of wider educational reforms designed to grow professional attributes that could support a creative knowledge economy. After six years of implementation, I felt that this could be a good time to gain insights into best practices among those who had been trained to teach it. So, this became the start of my research journey.
By the end of September 2019, I had completed my provisional year review, marking the official start of the fieldwork for my research. I was filled with enthusiasm, having spent a year reading the literature, writing numerous drafts of the literature review and discussing my research with friends as a way to clarify my thoughts. It had been a year and a half since I had left home, and I was eagerly looking forward to going back and meeting the pioneer teachers of QOED, who would be my interviewees. I was excited to discuss what new things they had done in their classes, and to listen from the perspective of a learner. The main focus of my research was the metacognition of collaboration among QOED teachers, and how their understandings of collaboration influenced their teaching of small group tasks. I was certain that their understandings would then benefit other QOED teachers.
The interviews took place in informal settings, allowing for casual conversations. It felt like I was catching up with friends and discussing what was new in our lives. We shared our feelings and thoughts about the topic of teaching QOED. I deeply appreciated their
willingness to share not only their successful teaching experiences, but also the challenges and confusions they encountered in their practice. This allowed us to explore the deeper issues they faced and the uncertainty they encountered while teaching.
And their words started to reveal a problem.
I had hoped to hear how their experiences and reflections would provide well-contextualised understandings and illustrations of collaboration in Chinese classrooms. I soon realised, however, that my friend was not alone in her concern. As one of the interviewees said,
To be honest, Professor Yisheng Lv led the team for the project, and we simply followed his lead. I think that his five proposed abilities, including communication and collaboration, is really good, but I feel that I don't yet have the ability to deeply understand their meaning.
As I questioned further and explored more narratives, these teachers maintained that they
valued the QOED classes but had a sense they were failing in terms of implementation. They particularly felt that they had not managed to pass their enthusiasm for its goals on to the learners. As another teacher told me, “I don’t know what to do to make students more engaged in the class. I heard some students say that QOED is a ‘stupid’ class”.
At first, it was not easy to identify the key obstacles that hindered the teaching of creativity and collaboration in QOED teaching practices. The teachers repeated their belief in the aspirations of QOED, but struggled to articulate what the problems were or why they felt the classes were not always having the expected outcomes. So, I kept listening and recording the stories of their happy and sad moments, and just kept asking them to describe everything that was going on in the class, hoping that this may reveal a pathway to success.
When I returned to Auckland with my data, I transcribed it all and felt a bit lost. I realised I had been over-optimistic: my original goal of presenting clear illustrations of how QOED classes could effectively foster collaboration seemed more and more elusive. As Covid-19 emerged and all of the lockdowns started, the idea of being able to return and seek more data also become a less likely possibility.
So I engaged in extensive discussions with my supervisors and we reviewed and re-revisited my interview data. I also embarked on deeper self-reflection regarding my own learning, my own teaching practice and my observations of QOED teaching. In order to acquire a more profound comprehension, I fully immersed myself in the role of being a QOED teacher, trying to cultivate collaborative skills among my own students. I implemented various collaborative activities that prompted these learners to generate innovative outcomes. Upon realising that my efforts were not yielding the desired results, I shared my experiences with my supervisors again and sought their insights on my reflections. Through these processes of discussion and introspection, I was able to examine my interview data from a broader
perspective, transcending my initial aspiration to tell a more positive story. Through this process, a significant theme emerged: difference. I engaged in more and more discussions with my supervisors on the theme of difference, and its role in education, creativity and collaboration. This led to significant realisations about my own learning experiences, and the ways that difference had been generally expressed as a negative concept within my dance education. I therefore revisited my research data, and the theories on collaboration and creativity in education, to consider more deeply the significance of difference as a concept.
This led to the research question that has guided this thesis.
1.2 Research Question and Significance
The establishment of the world’s largest public education system in China has made Chinese education a topic of widespread interest among scholars and researchers both within China and abroad (Bush & Qiang, 2000; Rowe, Buck & Martin, 2015). Explorations of Chinese education from international perspectives remain relatively few however (Jin, 2017), so as an international student from China, I have an opportunity to contribute to this field of
scholarship. This thesis therefore examines the question: How do the former educational purposes of QOED teachers challenge their current approaches to teaching creativity and collaboration?
This question foregrounds the importance of an educational purpose, as a rationalising
mandate for teachers that is distinct from what they are teaching and how they are teaching it.
This extends from the premise that if our education is to be emancipatory, providing learners with a greater sense of agency and confidence in making informed and ethical decisions, then this requires an educational pragmatism that can respond to over-arching why questions in pedagogy (Biesta, 2019). While my interviewees could describe what they were trying to teach and how they were trying to teach it, their rationalisations as to why they were engaged in teaching QOED moved to broad generalisations regarding its value in association with words like creativity, cooperation, collaboration and communication.
This research acknowledges that creativity and collaboration, as essential components within an innovation-driven economy (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2018), are central to international reforms within higher education (Guo & Zhang, 2018; Lin, 2017; OECD, 2018; Scott, 2015; Shi, 2018, Hesse et al., 2015; Rowe et al., 2021).
The Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China (2018) emphasised the importance of cultivating collaboration and communication skills at the First Session of the 13th National Committee of the CPPCC. The role of the teacher was stressed as central to this reform. In President Xi Jinping’s Series of Views on Governing the State and Governing Politics, he advocated that teachers are dream-builders who are responsible for building dream teams for the Chinese nation (“Xi Jinping’s view of respecting teachers and valuing education”, 2014). By emphasising the significant role of teachers in relation to teaching collaboration and the future of education in China, this policy presented a clearer mandate for collaboration and creativity as educational purposes within China. Dance, along with other
forms of arts education, is considered an integral part of this educational reform (Bridgstock, 2011), and yet dance education maintains entrenched pedagogic practices that are not
conducive to the development of creativity and collaboration.
Among my QOED teacher interviewees, it appeared that former educational purposes associated with conformity and competition were being sustained within their current
teaching practices. Such negative (or competitive) social interdependence among learners can make creativity and collaboration harder to achieve (Johnson & Johnson, 2005). While it is not always foregrounded in the literature on creativity and collaboration within these reforms in China, it can be argued that a valuing of difference and diversity is central to creativity and collaboration (Deleuze, 1994). The expectation of normative behaviour in higher education can, however, significantly contribute to the denial of differences in classrooms (Biesta, 2012a). Particularly within tertiary dance education in China, a strong emphasis on conformity and competition has been central to educational purposes associated with the training of performers for the labour market. The transition towards more promotive forms of social interdependence among learners therefore presents a significant transformation in the construction of learner relationships in China. As a result, among teachers and educational institutions in China, new educational initiatives like QOED appear to be borrowed pedagogies (Hu, 2002; Jin & Cortazzi, 2006), problematically extending Western cultural hegemony in China.
Part of my research has thus sought to reveal how dominant and seemingly immutable pedagogies within arts education in China have been socially constructed, during particular periods in Chinese history, in response to wider social, political and economic needs. I have also sought to reveal how more ancient educational philosophies in China (particularly those associated with 5th century BCE philosopher Confucius) present localised historical
precedents for pedagogical approaches that value creativity, collaboration, difference and diversity. This historical analysis might be considered of particular significance in an educational reform process that is taking place within a wider social emphasis on the
importance of “cultural confidence” associated with national identity (Guo, 2018; Yi & Dan, 2020).
My study therefore recognises that a reform of education requires more than just a re-training of what to teach in dance classes, and how to teach it: it requires a deeper understanding of why this educational transformation is taking place. I argue that this deeper understanding
requires a pedagogical comprehension of the ways that concepts like creativity, collaboration, difference and diversity interconnect, so that tasks are not presented to learners in a manner that contradicts this intention and makes these interconnections more difficult to achieve.
The findings of this research therefore offer valuable suggestions to policymakers regarding the transformation that dance teachers are experiencing as they approach teaching
collaboration and creativity, and thus can potentially inform the re-design of the dance education curriculum in China. This research also holds significance for teachers, learners and institutional leaders. The literature review on teaching purpose, teaching creativity and collaboration, and teaching difference provides a theoretical foundation that can help teachers, learners and institutional leaders to understand the ongoing educational reforms.
This understanding can inform their educational practices and wider institutional mandates.
In addition to these contributions of the research, my interviews with QOED teachers presented them with an opportunity to reflect on their own experiences and challenges when teaching QOED. This research is to be shared with them in the hope that it provides a useful analysis of their past pedagogies, future aspirations, and current practices.
1.3 An Overview of the Thesis
This thesis is comprised of seven chapters, including this introduction.
In Chapter 2, I present an extensive literature review on the educational purpose of QOED, drawing on the work of Gert Biesta and considering the unique context of QOED in China as a minor pedagogy (Mazzei & Smithers, 2020) in tertiary dance education. The review
emphasises the need for teachers to have a clear understanding of their educational purpose, particularly in fostering creativity and collaboration. Contemporary theories of creativity and collaboration are explored, highlighting the importance of valuing difference and diversity as political mindsets that support the development of creativity and collaboration. This
underscores the significance of appreciating diversity as an essential educational purpose within QOED.
Next, a concise history of education in China is provided, tracing the historical precedents of creativity, collaboration, difference, and diversity within Confucian teachings. These
precedents are significant because new models promoting creativity and collaboration are
often met with resistance and perceived as Western cultural influences. The analysis reveals how the ideals of creativity and difference were challenged in China due to educational purposes that emphasised conformity and competition among learners, dating back to ancient times through the imperial examinations system.
The discussion then shifts to the era of educational reform in China, highlighting the importance of valuing Quality-Oriented Education (suzhi jiaoyu) as a means to enhance creativity and collaboration. Within the context of tertiary dance education, the argument emphasises the challenges faced in implementing QOED within an educational landscape that prioritises uniformity, competition and conformity. The ambiguous understanding of the educational purpose of QOED further complicates matters for teachers seeking to transform their pedagogical practices and create an environment conducive to creative and collaborative learning experiences. The conceptualisations of difference and diversity within education and their impact on teachers’ sense of educational purpose in QOED are given particular
attention.
Chapter 3 begins by elucidating the theoretical foundations of qualitative research and constructivism that inform the current study. This leads into a discussion on the methods employed for data collection, specifically focusing on interviews conducted through narrative inquiry. The interviewees selected for this research are introduced, the interview process outlined, and how new topics emerged during these interviews highlighted. Next, the data analysis process is explicated, including the translation of data from Chinese to English. A thematic approach is employed as the primary method for analysing the collected data. I then acknowledge the position of the researcher and outline my role within the study. Ethical considerations are discussed and linked to the measures taken to ensure the well-being and confidentiality of the participants (interviewees) and to obtain informed consent. The chapter then turns to the challenges and limitations encountered during the research, shedding light on potential constraints that may impact the interpretation and generalisability of the findings.
Chapter 4 explores QOED teachers’ experiences of transformation and challenges when teaching QOED. The chapter begins with the interviewees reflecting on the value of QOED as an inclusive pedagogy that promotes self-actualisation through dance for all learners. They emphasise the shift away from authoritarian teaching practices and discuss its implications for teacher-student relationships and the teacher’s educational purpose. The chapter then explores the hindrances to the successful implementation of QOED, including institutional
expectations and resistance from other teachers and students. The interviewees critically reflect on their own teaching practice, acknowledging their limitations and the impact on instructional delivery. They express frustration at their own inability to fully realise the aspirations of QOED. This sets the focus for the study’s subsequent chapters which examine interviewees’ deeper reflections on diversity and collaboration in their teaching practices; and consider the persistence of mainstream educational purposes within their teaching, stemming from previous and ongoing practices within other courses in tertiary dance education.
In the first part of Chapter 5, I focus on the reflections of QOED teachers regarding the qualities and celebration of difference that emerge from learners during class. The valuing of difference is seen as crucial for students to experience creativity and the process of
“becoming” in dance classes. By moving beyond binary and categorical differences,
education can embrace diversity and avoid authoritarian discourses, allowing for a pluralistic approach to meaning and knowledge construction. While the literature on QOED lacks explicit theorisation of difference and diversity, the interviewees recognise the significance of difference and respond positively to its emergence in creative activities. However, they also express uncertainty and challenges in articulating why they teach QOED, highlighting the need for clearer educational purposes that value diversity.
The second part of the chapter explores how the teaching practices of QOED teachers can hinder the flourishing of difference within their classes. The teachers discuss how they perceive student differences as deficits and categorise them accordingly, reinforcing norms and standards within dance education. Students are streamed and directed in ways that suppress difference and foster hierarchical learning relationships. Additionally, the teachers prioritise conformity and diminish the valuing of difference among learners in order to
achieve efficiency and product quality in group tasks. These findings set the stage for Chapter 6.
Chapter 6 further investigates how QOED teachers promote conformity and hinder the
appreciation of difference within peer relationships among students. I explore the influence of the underlying perspectives on difference, discussed in Chapter 5, regarding the active
engagement of individuals in fostering peer relationships within the curriculum’s key collaborative space: independent small group tasks. Initially, I investigate the interviewees’
understanding of the purpose and function of these small group tasks, noting that their perceptions revolve around cooperative learning and cooperation rather than collaboration,
which implies the expectation of hierarchical relationships. Subsequently, I analyse their beliefs about group leadership and discover a prevalent notion that student groups necessitate or naturally possess individuals who assume leadership roles, thus perpetuating a hierarchical decision-making structure within each group. This analysis leads to a discussion on how groups are formed in their classes, revealing that differences are still viewed as deficiencies, and the selection of group members is based on the belief that the strengths of some learners will compensate for the weaknesses of others. Finally, I examine how teachers perceive the decision-making processes within these small groups, highlighting how their perceptions and valuation of these processes can sustain practices of hierarchy and conformity.
The final chapter of the thesis draws conclusions from the findings and critical analysis, offering a comprehensive summary of the research outcomes derived from the examination of literature, methodology and discussions. Moreover, it puts forth recommendations based on the study’s findings, with a specific emphasis on educational purpose, curriculum design, teacher training and the institutional socialisation of reform concepts. These
recommendations, in turn, lay the groundwork for prospective avenues of future research in the realm of tertiary education worldwide, particularly within the context of tertiary education in China and tertiary dance.
Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Introduction
This thesis seeks to explore Quality-Oriented Education Dance (QOED) teachers’ perceptions of difference and diversity, and how these perceptions may influence the ways in which the teachers provide opportunities for students to collaborate and value each other’s creative contributions. As the subsequent methodology chapter will explain, this line of inquiry was not the starting point for my research, but emerged as I engaged in interviews with QOED teachers. My interviewees acknowledged some uncertainty regarding their new QOED teaching practice. In particular, they sensed an internal contradiction, yet could not quite articulate how or why. This thesis thus became an exploration of their concerns, and a key theme emerged. This related to teacher conceptualisations of difference and diversity among learners, and to contrasts between their reflections and contemporary theories associated with creativity and collaboration. These contrasts went beyond just the positioning of content within their classes and revealed more fundamental tensions within their sense of purpose as educators.
I therefore begin this literature review with a discussion on the significance of a teacher’s sense of educational purpose, extending from the scholarship of Gert Biesta. This takes on a particular significance in the context of QOED in China, a fledgling educational movement that may be considered a minor pedagogy (Mazzei & Smithers, 2020) in the context of tertiary dance education in China, and, even more problematically, a borrowed pedagogy (Hu, 2002; Jin & Cortazzi, 2006). I argue that for QOED to be fully realised, teachers require a clearer sense of educational purpose and, to achieve that, they require deeper understanding of the circumstances that allow for creativity and collaboration to emerge. This then leads into an analysis of contemporary theories of creativity and collaboration, which ultimately emphasise the valuing of difference and diversity as political mindsets that enable creativity and collaboration to thrive. This suggests that any teaching of creativity and collaboration requires a clear valuing of diversity as an educational purpose within QOED.
I then present a summative history of education in China to identify how creativity, collaboration, difference and diversity have historical precedents within teachings of Confucius. These precedents are important to consider because there are concerns that new
models promoting creativity and collaboration are expressions of Western cultural hegemony and are to be resisted. I then reveal how the ideals of creativity and difference were
subsequently challenged in China by prevailing educational purposes associated with fostering conformity and competition between learners. This history identifies how this pedagogical mindset was constructed in the ancient era through the imperial examinations system, which was deemed an equitable means of identifying valuable individuals to serve in governing bureaucracies. Such mindset continued in the post-1949 period in China.
This leads into an analysis of the educational reform era in China, and the valuing of Quality- Oriented Education (suzhijiaoyu) as a significant step towards enhancing creativity and collaboration in China. Through positioning the significance of Quality-Oriented Education reforms within the history of tertiary dance education, I argue that the implementation of QOED has faced significant challenges within a broad and uniform educational landscape that has continued to value competitive and conformist mindsets. I then argue that
ambiguities over the educational purpose of QOED continue to present challenges for teachers who are trying to transform their pedagogic practices, so as to enable creative, collaborative classes. I particularly focus on teacher conceptualisations of difference and diversity within education and consider how these may impact their sense of educational purpose in QOED.
2.2 Teaching Purpose
2.2.1 Researching Teachers’ Questions
While this thesis revisits histories of education in China, particularly histories of dance education, this is undertaken with a clear sense that educational practices are always
evolving. My investigations into educational histories in this chapter are therefore undertaken with the goal of trying to understand What next?: What are the next stages for dance
education in China? What do they require? How can these needs be better enunciated so that teachers can have a clearer sense of what they are doing and why?
Speculating on the future of education is challenging, particularly in a world that is rapidly changing (OECD, 2018). It is perhaps even harder to speculate on the future of teachers, as both learning needs and technologies change (Scott, 2015). This speculation on the role of the teacher is even more challenging when liberation remains a goal of education, as we further
need to consider the unfolding contexts in which education will be emancipatory. Gert Biesta (2019), whose ruminations on the contemporary role of the teacher have been very influential within my research journey, describes how,
Teachers, if they are interested in emancipation, need to constantly invent … ways of asking … about what cannot be foreseen as a possibility from the here and now but nonetheless is what we are constantly hoping for: the ‘arrival’ of the student as subject, in the world but not in the centre of the world. (p. 553)
That is, teachers need to not only consider what is relevant now, but how will that which teachers do now be of some relevance to ethical learners in a future world that is yet to be imagined? As Biesta suggests, this requires the constant invention of questions about teaching. As an educational researcher, I therefore feel engaged in a threefold process of speculation: how will the inquiries that I invent now, inform the future questions of teachers, so as to inform the future needs of learners? For my inquiry into the teaching practices of QOED in China, this has involved listening to what my interviewees are currently saying and what they are not saying, and considering how their reflections on their practice might
present unspoken tensions that may arise as future teaching questions. From these
speculations, I have sought to understand emerging concerns for the educational goals of QOED.
2.2.2 Biesta’s Content, Relationships and Purpose
My approach to research into education has been informed by Gert Biesta’s proposition that education is distinct from learning. Within his critique of the “learnification” (Biesta, 2009, p. 38) of educational discourse, Biesta (2009) emphasises the significance of teachers within education, not as part of a conservative call for a return to authoritarian, teacher-centred pedagogical modes, but as a recognition that education is underpinned by a purposeful interaction between teachers and students. That is, while learning may happen in many formal and informal contexts, education ultimately requires a teacher to teach a learner. Their teaching is influenced by what they are teaching, who they are teaching and, ultimately, why they are teaching. Biesta (2012a) describes these three key phenomena as the teaching content, relationships and purpose, explaining, “the point of education is never that children or students learn, but that they learn something, that they learn this for particular purposes, and that they learn this from someone” (p. 36).
Biesta’s statement situates a teacher as something other than just another learning resource within education, like a book or the internet. A teacher is an agent with a particular purpose distinct from the learner’s immediate needs. Education, when framed in this way, presents a pedagogic responsibility: a promise that the teaching and learning is for a particular purpose, and that the activities associated with the learning and teaching are aligned with that
particular purpose. In this way, teaching may be understood as a gift (Derrida, 1992):
teaching is giving in a manner that does not demand an equitable exchange of knowledge or skills. The receiving of this gift by learners does, however, require that students are willing to let go of the autonomy that they may experience in self-directed learning, as “when we are being taught by someone, something enters our field of experience in a way that is
fundamentally beyond our control” (Biesta, 2012a, p. 42). The taking of responsibility for this control is part of the gift of teaching, and therefore requires a justifiable rationalisation in the form of a teaching purpose. Maintaining this sense of purpose provides a teacher with agency in their classrooms: a sense that they are empowered and responsible for making decisions about what and how the learners that they are with are experiencing education.
It can be easy to conflate the purpose of teaching with the something that is taught (i.e., believe that the main aim of the education is simply to teach and learn particular content).
Purpose in this context, however, relates to a wider rationalisation of the educational experience, associated with ongoing and iterative impacts of the education on the learner in the world. This meaning of teaching purpose therefore extends beyond the articulation of a curriculum logic, such as the way a constructively aligned curriculum ensures that learner capabilities are aligned with learning activities, assessments and learning outcomes (Biggs, 1996). For Biesta, an educational purpose means that everything a teacher does needs to be rationalised in response to the educational rationale. As Biesta (2012a) explains,
Education, unlike learning, is always framed by telos- that is, by a sense of purpose- which means that teachers always need to make judgements about what is desirable in relation to the different purposes that frame their practice…. all judgements in
education are entirely pragmatic, that is, that any decisions about the content and form of education can only be made with reference to what it is one aims to achieve. (p. 36- 38)
This philosophic engagement with pragmatism is not new to education (Dewey, 1998;
Bourdieu, 1990), as pragmatism recognises that all educational actions have implications for
the learner, and the outcomes of the learning. Biesta (2012a) seeks however to re-emphasise the significance of the teacher’s decisions within this educational pragmatism: that teacher’s decisions associated with the teaching purpose should ultimately rationalise everything else a teacher does:
It is only when we have a sense of what it is we want to achieve through our
educational efforts that it becomes possible to make meaningful decisions about the
‘what’ and the ‘how’ of our educational efforts, that is, decisions about content and processes. (p. 38)
This split between the what and the how is often positioned as a distinction between the content knowledge and the pedagogical knowledge of teachers (Cooper, 2018; Shulman, 1987). Within the subject of dance, educational researchers have emphasised the problems that arise when dance educators only have content knowledge (Warburton, 2008). The development of teaching practice can require pedagogical knowledge and skills in course design (Voss et al., 2011), course implementation (Torff & Sessions, 2005), diverse teaching methods (Gitomer & Zisk, 2015), the psychology of teaching and learning (Lambert &
McCombs, 1998) and effective communication (Garritz, 2015). It is important to note that these content and pedagogical knowledges do not, however, address the issue of teaching purpose. Having an understanding of purpose matters, as Biesta (2012a) argues, “for teachers to be able to teach they need to be able to make judgements about what is educationally desirable” (p. 45).
So, what is the teaching purpose for dance educators in China? Much of the scholarship into dance education in China has focused on the what: the content that learners are expected to master (e.g., Wang, 2017; Zhang, 2016). There has also been a growing body of research on the how: studies of teaching methods that have critically questioned conservative models of studio learning and teacher-student relationships (e.g., Jin & Lv, 2021; Qu, 2021; Zhou et al., 2019). Within research into dance education in China, the why of education has received less critical scrutiny, and seemingly falls back to broader policy-based rationales associated with the role of education in society. For example, the Ministry of Education implemented the Six Excellence and One Top Plan 2.0 in 2019; rationalising the current educational purpose is to promote the integration of philosophy and social sciences with the new technological
revolution and cultivate philosophical and social scientists of the new era (Hu & Zhang, 2019). This presents an educational purpose that is framed around the economic needs of the
collective: the purpose of education is to fulfil a societal quota of a particular type of professional. This could be in tension with a new educational curriculum such as QOED, which presents a purpose more associated with personal emancipation and self-actualisation.
Drawing on Biesta, I argue that deliberating on this purpose should be a QOED teacher’s primary concern, so as to feel more enabled to make critical decisions regarding the what and the how of teaching.
2.2.3 QOED as a Minor Pedagogy
To validate such deliberations, it can be useful to consider QOED as a minor pedagogy (Mazzei & Smithers, 2020) within tertiary dance education in China. This concept of a minor pedagogy has its origins in Deleuze and Guattari’s theorisation of a minor literature (1986;
1987) and is discussed here as a means of subverting presumed norms of educational behaviour. As Mazzei and Smithers (2020) explain,
…while formed by a minority, a minor literature is constructed within a major
language, enacting a deterritorialization as resistance to striating practices. In a minor pedagogy, we unsettle habitual pedagogies that sediment thought and method. The second characteristic is that everything in a minor literature is political. The individual concern is not confined to the individual but allied with the collective…. All things, all individuals, all stories are claimed in an entangled territory of connection. The third characteristic is that in a minor literature, all things assume a collective value.
(p. 100)
My consideration of QOED as a minor pedagogy therefore requires positioning QOED within the stratified context of tertiary dance in China. As I describe in Section 2.6, within China tertiary dance education is a formalised educational practice, with deeply entrenched teaching expectations stemming from a very particular educational history. Transgressing the
dominant educational purposes within tertiary dance education in China can therefore require teachers to “unsettle habitual pedagogies that sediment thought and method” (Mazzei &
Smithers, 2020, p.100), so as to allow for collective transformation and collective enunciation of a shared teaching purpose. This unsettling is the main goal of this thesis, as I reveal how current teaching practices perpetuate habitual teaching purposes.
As this thesis reveals, gaining clarity about a teaching purpose for QOED teachers is not a straightforward matter. QOED presents a seemingly clear and specific educational purpose:
to enhance the creative and collaborative capabilities of learners (discussed further in Section 2.6). In the following sections however, I argue that this purpose can be very complex, and entangled with other key concepts. This is because creativity and collaboration does not simply happen in a classroom as a result of a teacher presenting an assignment that demands creative or collaborative actions. Creativity and collaboration can require a reconstruction of the entire psychological and social climate and, through that, a reshaping of educational relationships and content (discussed further in Section 2.3). Within the context of tertiary dance education in China, I argue that part of this reconstruction involves the introduction and valuing of unfamiliar concepts that are central to a teacher’s sense of purpose when teaching creativity and collaboration.
Within this thesis, I focus on how the Deleuzian concepts of difference and diversity are fundamental to the educational purpose of creativity and collaboration. As underlying educational purposes, the valuing of difference and diversity present very distinct mandates from the educational purposes that the teachers of QOED are familiar with from their previous teaching and learning experiences in China. These new purposes can be in tension with the ways in which their surrounding institutions value normativity and conformity.
Previous research has considered how the wider institutional environment can challenge creative teaching practices in tertiary dance education in China (Rowe, Xiong &
Tuomeiciren, 2020). While these institutional resistances may be understood as mere
intellectual intransigence regarding new ideas, the resistance can also be attributed to broader political concerns over the use of borrowed pedagogies (Grimshaw, 2007; Elliot, 2014), particularly from the West (Tan, 2016), and concerns that Chinese educational systems are becoming subjected to Western hegemony and a feeling that the West wind has overpowered the East wind (Tan & Chua, 2015), as discussed further in Section 2.5.
The problems confronting QOED teachers, however, are not solely external. The valuing of difference and diversity can also create tensions within teachers’ habitual teaching practices;
that is, practices associated with entrenched and assumed educational whys, whats and hows.
I focus on this latter concern. Within the context of a minor pedagogy, this can require that QOED teachers disentangle their habitual teaching practices and understandings from their new educational purpose, as presented by QOED.
To be able to understand the new educational purpose, it can be useful to more deeply examine creativity and collaboration within education, and specifically how the concepts of difference and diversity present crucial educational purposes within the teaching of creativity and collaboration. From this standpoint, it is then possible to consider the extent to which these educational purposes are in tension with the educational purposes of historic tertiary dance teaching practices in China.
2.3 Teaching Creativity and Collaboration
2.3.1 The Value of Creativity and Collaboration
Creativity and collaboration have emerged as highly valued concepts in the 21st century, leading to new governance policies, a growing creative economy, educational transformations and cross-sector initiatives that seek to enhance creativity and collaboration within society.
This valuing of creativity and collaboration is often attributed to economic growth, as creativity and collaboration are seen as valuable processes that yield innovative results (McWilliam et al., 2010). Those who possess the necessary knowledge, skills and
characteristics to contribute original ideas are considered creative/collaborative individuals who can provide significant value in the workplace. Their contributions are particularly prized as they often lead to the creation of new services and products that are considered novel within their respective fields, resulting in increased economic productivity (Hearn &
Bridgstock, 2010). Recent decades have therefore seen economic forces and globalisation shaping creativity, which has had a considerable impact on education (Craft, 2005; Harris, 2014).
Economic growth is not the only rationalisation for creativity and collaboration however, and a narrow emphasis on the economic value of individual or collective creativity can produce very reductive understandings of creativity and collaboration as purposes within education.
This section therefore provides a broader frame of reference for the function of creativity within society, so that a teacher’s educational purpose in relation to creativity may be recognised as complex and multifaceted. This can help us to ask: how might creativity and collaboration be considered educational purposes within QOED?
Within this section, I examine how creativity and collaboration are currently valued, how they are valued in education, how they are valued in tertiary education and how they are
valued in dance education. This involves a review of contemporary Western literature associated with these questions, leading into a specific focus on difference and diversity as key facets of creativity in education, which will then be explored further in Section 2.4. These two sections will thus provide a theoretical framework for considering how education,
creativity and dance have been theorised within China.
2.3.2 Evolving Understandings of Creativity
Creativity is a complex and evolving concept. Human processes of innovation have historically been attributed to divine inspiration and natural talent, which has led to assumptions that creative activity is something that can only be experienced by a select number of individuals within a society (Willis, 1990). From the Renaissance and through the modernist periods in Europe, creativity has been deeply entwined with narratives of
individual genius (Banaji et al., 2010), and the function of education in relation to creativity has been to identify and nurture those select few (Duffy, 1998). This expectation has been particularly prevalent within domains such as the arts, in which creativity has been associated with innovation undertaken by brilliant individual artists (Pope, 2005; Runco & Jaeger, 2012). While understandings of creativity have changed significantly over the last half century, the perception of creativity being associated with select individuals has persisted within popular culture. And the view that the arts are the appropriate location in education to develop a learner’s creativity has remained pervasive (Schroder, 2022). The perception that creativity is fundamentally an individual endeavour has been further emphasised by
neoliberal educational mandates that have privatised the experience of learning (Biesta, 2006).
In the second half of the 20th century, creativity theories began moving beyond conceptions of creativity as an inherent attribute of particular individuals, recognising that creativity can be a phenomenon experienced by many, particularly when placed within a “creative climate”
(Taylor, 1972). In the field of social psychology, creativity was presented broadly as the
“production of novel and useful ideas in any domain” (Amabile et al., 1996, p. 1155). In order to rationalise that everyone is able to engage in creative activity, creativity theorists distinguished creative activity, which produces a wholly original idea, from creativity activity, which allows for personal realisations that are useful in a particular environment (Best, 1985; Torrance, 1995). The latter form still involves creative processes, leading to an
idea that may be original for the self even if it is not original to the surrounding culture (Tegano et al., 1991; Duffy, 1998). This expanded upon previous understandings of creativity that sought to differentiate the value of creative activity between the value to the “users” and the value to the “providers” of the creative outputs (Hawkes, 1977, p. 121). Contrasted as big C and little c understandings of creativity (Craft, 2001), this distinction between original-for- the-world and original-for-the-self has been important for identifying the value of creativity as both a cognitive and social process, and particularly the value of creativity in education.
This little c creativity is described as the creativity of everyday life, whereas Big C creativity refers to ideas that are significant as original to humanity. Little c creativity is “inherent in the everyday cultural and symbolic practices of all human beings” (Banaji et al., 2010, p. 55).
Within everyday moments of creativity, possibility thinking is instinctively undertaken through the use of what if questions (Craft, 2001). Through these fundamental processes of cognition, creativity enables individuals to adapt to an ever-changing world (Fryer, 1996).
The perception that creativity is something that everyone can experience has been further considered from an ethical standpoint and become aligned with the humanistic ideal that creativity is something that everybody should experience (Chappell, 2008). This humanistic valuing of creativity extends from a Marxist understanding of creativity as a practice:
Creative practice is thus of many kinds.… It can be the long and difficult remaking of an inherited (determined) practical consciousness: a process often described as
development but in practice a struggle at the roots of the mind – not casting off an ideology, or learning phrases about it, but confronting a hegemony in the fibres of the self and in the hard practical substance of effective and continuing relationships.
(Williams, 1977, p. 212)
In this sense, creativity presents an important mandate to education, beyond simply the training of a new generation of artists. As Pope (2005) explains, “This is creativity as more than mere ‘consciousness-raising’; it is the radical refashioning of consciousness” (p. 11).
The ability to transform the self through creative activity presents creativity with a self- actualising dimension, supporting the holistic development of the individual (Maslow, 1970).
So while big C Creativity remains valued for its contribution to society, little c creativity is valued as a capability by which all learners might rearrange ideas and generate meaning in novel ways (Beetlestone, 1998). This ability to re-arrange ideas through creativity, or bricolage (Lévi-Strauss, 1966), has more than just a utilitarian purpose. A humanistic
understanding of creativity shows that it can be an emancipatory experience for the creator, transforming both the products created and the identity of the person involved in the creation (Chappell, 2008).
Experiencing such creativity is a complex process. It extends beyond imaging (recollecting an idea in the mind) and imagining (entering into a fantasy through role play or imitation), and involves reaching a heightened state of “being imaginative” so as to generate novel ideas within the person engaged in the creative practice (Craft, 2002). The experience of creativity in the individual has been further examined as a mental and sensual process within cognitive psychology (Finke et al., 1995). This has identified how the production of novel, useful ideas can be more readily activated when individuals are in an optimal state of flow
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1997), enabling peak experiences (Privette, 2001). This optimal state is not independent of its environment, and so (extending from the idea of a creative climate) researchers have sought to understand how the conditions that lead to flow can help individuals and organisations to optimise their performance in the creative realm (Csikszentmihalyi et al., 2018).
Acknowledging the ways that the environment contributes to a creative experience has further involved acknowledging the “affordances” for creativity that a physical environment enables (Glăveanu, 2013, p. 71). In some ways, this aligns with current research into
Indigenous understandings of creativity, which acknowledge the significance of the environment in revelation, and further identify the significance of connections with
metaphysical realms within peak experiences of creativity (Faik-Simet, 2021; ‘Ofamo’oni &
Rowe, 2022). This connects with a posthuman understanding of creativity, which “allows for a full range of ‘players’ within the creative process” (Chappell, 2018, p. 280). While not seeking a return to historic tropes about art as subject to divine inspiration, this posthuman understanding of creativity de-centres a particularly libertarian understanding of humanity from the discourse on creativity. Posthuman creativity extends the ethics of creativity by acknowledging the intricate ways in which those engaged in creative activity are deeply connected with, and dependent upon, the universe (Braidotti, 2013). From a posthuman understanding of creativity, humans are enmeshed within their environments, and so
creativity emerges through intra-actions (as distinct from inter-actions) with the environment (Barad, 2003).
While this thesis does not extend into considerations of posthumanism within creativity in dance education in China, the ethics of creativity remains a central concern, as this ethics rationalises a teacher’s sense of educational purpose within the arts. A consideration of the environment emphasises both the significance of relationships with others within a creative process and the ethics regarding how a creative process impacts not just the individual but all those involved, as well as the surrounding community. This broader humanistic ethics for creativity, described as wise humanising creativity (Chappell et al., 2017), presents an extension of humanising approaches to creativity and underscores the importance of
collaboration as a means of experiencing creativity. Wise humanising creativity emphasises the interconnection between the inside and outside worlds as a central location for the generation of novel creative ideas. By engaging in dialogue and sharing thoughts and ideas with others, people can develop and express them through collaborative efforts with the outside world (Chappell et al., 2012). Wise humanising creativity is nurtured when people are provided with opportunities to engage in collaborative thinking and joint action, allowing them to develop new ideas that hold value for themselves and their community (Walsh et al., 2017).
Wise humanising creativity therefore offers a relational ethics to the practice of creativity.
This has been used to rationalise an educational purpose for arts teachers: an educational purpose that extends beyond simply teaching someone to, through and about dance. Before considering creativity within education however, it is important to further explore the ways in which collaboration has emerged as a significant concept within creativity.
2.3.3 Collaboration as an Interdependent Experience of Creativity
Collaboration is a positive form of social interdependence in which collaborators work promotively with each other, rather than competitively against each other or completely independent of each other, to reach a shared goal (Johnson & Johnson, 2009). Such
promotive social interdependence exists when, “individuals perceive that they can attain their goals if and only if the other individuals with whom they are cooperatively linked attain their goals” (Johnson, 2003, p. 935).
The construction of such promotive relationships therefore requires individuals to value positive forms of social interdependence, and to disassemble any competitive behaviour that might inhibit their collective achievement of a common goal (Johnson & Johnson, 2005).