Dance education and cognition; Curriculum studies in public schools

This thesis poses the hypothesis that dance education in public elementary and middle schools plays an important role in the development of cognitive learning. This study explores recent theoretical writing on the arts and cognition and selected projects that have utilized this theoretical work as a basis for curriculum development in dance and arts education. The writings of Howard Gardner have been seminal in leading researchers and educators to analyze the arts as an integral component of cognitive learning. From 1973 to 1983 Gardner published three books which challenged the concept that the arts were related only to affective development: The Arts and Human Development (1973); Art, Mind, and Brain (1982); and Frames of Mind (1983). In Frames of Mind Gardner put forth the idea that there were seven forms of intelligence: linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Gardner provides a framework for the arts as a significant aspect of education. This thesis examines how selected schools have structured their curriculum with an understanding that education in the arts has the capability to develop various forms of intelligences as outlined in Gardner's multiple intelligence theory. Three schools were selected for curriculum analysis where Gardner's ideas have been tested and developed and they are: Fillmore Arts Center (Washington, DC); The Key School (Indianapolis); and Shortridge Junior High School (Indianapolis). The history and theory of each of the curricular projects is examined, with the major focus on the dance curriculum.