Participatory Approaches to Physical Activity and Dance Research with Early Childhood Teachers

This paper engages with multiplicity in methodology through reflections on a dance and risky play research project in a shared problematisation of children's physical activity. A research-practitioner team explored perspectives on physical activity and risky play through dance. This project aimed to distance itself from the idea of an expert other in both research and professional development -- an approach that employs a Foucauldian reading of power/knowledge to make sense of the multiplicity of agendas around dance and physical activity. One early childhood centre teaching team participated in two focus groups (pre and post) and a workshop. The workshop conducted in the centre was designed in response to the first focus group, applying creative dance elements within the Aotearoa New Zealand curriculum concept of people, places and things, indoors and outdoors. We reflect on how the relationships to expert knowledge emerged and aligned with the research aims and design.