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Arts & Communication Discrimination and dance students’ well-being

Empirical accounts of experiences of racial inequity 2. Methods
and their effects are essential, but to date, only a handful
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of papers have discussed the experience of racism in dance 2.1. The RED project
training from either a personal perspective, 8,9,13 or in small- This study is part of the larger 3-year RED project. The RED
scale studies of students. 10,30 Further research among larger project addresses the following two key research questions:
populations is required to better understand racial inequity (i) What is the impact of lack of representation and racial
in dance. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate equity on dance student well-being and aspirations?
the impact of racial discrimination in professional dance (ii) To what extent are dance organizations able to
training on the well-being of Global Majority students. implement a framework specifically designed to
The findings will support the TIRED Movement’s aim to enhance representation in dance education and
create evidence-based change in tertiary dance training training?
and beyond.
To address the research questions, the TIRED
Given the broad range of psychological impacts of Movement partnered with nine dance colleges in the
racism and the lack of dance-specific research in this area, UK, offering professional training. The colleges have
no particular model of discrimination or well-being was international reputations for developing dance artists, with
chosen for this study. Indeed, adopting a broad scope many of their graduates gaining performing contracts in
was necessary to begin to understand such concepts, the West End theatres and beyond.
given the nascent stage of research in dance, rather than The first phase of the RED project investigated the
attempting to fit the data into an existing model. Therefore, impact of lack of representation and racial equity in dance
variables were selected based on both previous literature education by exploring student dancers’ psychological
and concepts that appear particularly relevant to dance well-being, ambitions, and aspirations in relation to their
students in training, some of which are drawn from well- ethnicity and experiences of discrimination. This was
established well-being models. Specifically, these included explored through an online survey (which is reported in
the Personal Well-being Index as a measure of general this paper) and focus groups with students. In the second
life satisfaction, to give an indication of the impact phase of the project, the findings will be used to design an
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of discrimination on global well-being. Competence evidence-based framework for enhancing representation
perceptions have been highlighted as particularly in dance training. The framework will be piloted by the
important in educational settings as they influence nine partner colleges, and its efficacy and impact will be
motivation, self-perceptions, and expectations of future evaluated by the first author.
achievement. As such, competence perceptions were
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examined within the Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction 2.2. Participants
Scale and in items relating to expectancy-value tenets, Once ethical approval had been granted from a higher
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which consider current competence perceptions as education ethics review board, participants were recruited
well as future expectations. Social exclusion has been from the partner colleges through email callouts. Students
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highlighted in previous research, 27,28 therefore, satisfaction were sent a link to the online survey, which included an
with social relationships was measured within both the informed consent form. In total, 150 surveys contained
Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction Scale and the sufficient data for analysis. The average age of the
Personal Well-being Index. Finally, given the importance participants was 19.61 ± 1.47 years, and they represented
of the body in dance and dancers’ reports of discrimination a range of ethnicities, as can be seen in Table 1. These
based on body type and shape, 13,30 the Body Appreciation were then grouped into two larger categories for further
Scale was included in the study. 35 analyses: White, which included any White background
In addition, as this study was the first of its kind, a (N = 109; 73.15%), and Global Majority, which included
limited number of open-ended questions were included any Global Majority background including mixed heritage
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in the survey to explore students’ aspirations. This was (N = 40; 26.85%) . The decision to group participants of
of interest to the TIRED Movement team as there are any Global Majority background was not made to suggest
limited diverse role models in dance leadership positions, a degree of homogeneity among individuals of different
which could affect the ambitions of the Global Majority ethnic and cultural backgrounds but rather was a necessity
students. 5,8,31 Potential barriers to career success were also to ensure sufficient statistical power to run further analyses.
explored in the open-ended questions to understand the The initial analysis plan was to analyze the data according
extent to which students were aware of issues around bias 3 Out of the 150 surveys analyzed, one participant declined to
and discrimination in the UK dance sector. indicate their ethnicity.

Volume 3 Issue 1 (2025) 3 doi: 10.36922/ac.3165