Injury prevention for dance pedagogues - A qualitative research in five dance pedagogy educations.

This study is about injury prevention in dance. We examined five dance pedagogy educations in four schools in Sweden to find out how injury prevention is included in these different programmes. The purpose of the study is to find differences and similarities in the schools and to highlight a subject that we think is important for dance pedagogues. We sent questionnaires to the four schools and analysed their course syllabises to find out in which courses injury prevention is included. Our literature overview gave us a foundation of the subject but through our two interviews we got a deeper understanding of why injury prevention is important for dance pedagogues. We did a content analysis on our material to get clearer comparisons of the schools. From the content analysis we created three categories: substance, knowledge and aim. The result of the study shows that injury prevention is included in courses with dance training and didactics. In these courses are theoretical and practical anatomy, dance technique and didactics included. Some of the schools also have physiology, biomechanics, nutrition and complementary training. The aim of the courses is that the student should learn to take care of her/his body and avoid injuries. The student should know how to create exercises and material for different ages and bodies in order to avoid injuries. Injury prevention is important for dance pedagogues because they have responsibility for their students and because the pedagogues should have a sustainable career.