“Kind of Business”: Hip-hop Dance Classes and the Commercialisation of Inclusion

Abstract

Inclusion within education and culture has been valued within successive global policy documents, as an essential component of social cohesion and sustainable development. While this has led to the reform of formal educational systems and national cultural policies, it has more recently involved the commercialisation of inclusion as an experience within the nonformal education marketplace. This marketplace includes adult dance classes, and particularly popular social dance forms like hip-hop, which can seek new students by promoting an inclusive educational experience. While doux commerce theory has advanced the idea that progressive social agendas can be made more widespread through such marketisation, we may question the impact of a commercialisation on the meanings and values of inclusion when it is actually being implemented within such commercial dance classes. This study therefore asks: How do adult learners experience inclusion within a studio hip-hop class in New Zealand? Through a qualitative, phenomenological inquiry, this study critically examines the experiences of seven adult learners of hip-hop; exploring their dance learning and inclusion journeys through semi-structured interviews. Their stories give rise to significant themes, which are positioned within academic literature on inclusion and exclusion in arts education. These adult learners describe experiencing inclusion through the ethnic diversity of the classroom environment and the encouraging behaviours of teachers. They also perceive exclusion through the different ways that more advanced dancers and beginners are treated by teachers and other dancers, and how this reinforced a sense of hierarchy and expectations of assimilation. My critical analysis sought further obstacles to inclusion that my participants discussed but did not identify as exclusive, such as assumptions regarding movement vocabulary, physical coordination and physical fitness, to reveal how exclusion may be being unwittingly perpetuated within the pedagogic practices of these class. This reveals the dilemmas of seeking to incorporate and promote concepts like inclusion within learning environments, that also seek to maintain competitive and elitist goals within dance education.