Year of Publication
2025
College
Undergraduate Education
Abstract
The bulk of the research for this thesis, conducted in the summer and fall of 2024, predates the anti-DEI executive actions from January of 2025. The narrower context of dance education in private studios was selected as a result of my studies– a primary major in Dance and an undergraduate certificate of Social Work in Diversity and Inclusivity Awareness. The thesis was conceptualized in early 2024 with the larger impetus stemming from the 2020 uproar of Black Lives Matter; having been raised in Louisville, Kentucky, I witnessed firsthand the widespread pain and personal reckoning across the city after the Louisville Metro Police Department murdered Breonna Taylor. DEI has been a major focal point of legal, political, and social debates throughout the 2020s. Thus, I acknowledge the inherent sensitivities and controversial nature of DEI, particularly the strong opinions evoked surrounding the topic. The executive actions of the 47th presidential administration through February of 2025 are explicitly described in the thesis’s conclusion, a section titled “Moving Forward.” Further, the executive actions have impacted colleges, universities, and government agencies across the nation to the extent that the sources originally gathered for this paper may be altered or removed at the time of reading.
Recommended Citation
Benton, Anna, "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Dance Studio: Navigating and Understanding Identity-Based Differences as a Dance Educator" (2025). Gaines Fellow Senior Theses. 39.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/gaines_theses/39
