Body and Subject under the Technological Gaze: A Subjectification-Centered Critique of AI-Assisted Dance Education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54097/xz0qt961Keywords:
Artificial Intelligence, Dance Education, Subjectification, Biesta, Educational Technology Critique, Algorithmic MediationAbstract
This paper conceptually examines how the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into dance education may reshape the social, affective, and ethical conditions of teaching and learning, and what these structural changes may imply for learners’ subjectification. Drawing on Biesta’s (2009, 2017, 2020) framework of the three educational functions—qualification, socialization, and subjectification—the paper develops a theoretical lens through which two common assumptions in contemporary AI-in-education discourse are critically examined: (a) that AI-enabled personalization inherently supports subjectification, and (b) that gains in instructional efficiency produced by algorithmic feedback are pedagogically neutral. Through a deductive analysis of existing empirical and conceptual literature in educational technology, the paper argues that AI-assisted dance instruction operates alongside two interconnected structural shifts. The first concerns the weakening of bodily co-presence and the accompanying erosion of relational and affective conditions that support the formation of subjectivity. The second involves a redistribution of evaluative authority from situated human judgment toward algorithmic standards that are themselves embedded with cultural and aesthetic assumptions. The paper contends that, unless guided by an explicit pedagogical commitment to subjectification, the integration of AI may strengthen the qualification function of dance education at the expense of its subjectifying purpose. As a conceptual response rather than an empirical solution, two pedagogical orientations are proposed for illustration: co-perceptive feedback and culturally grounded narrative practice. The contribution of this study is primarily theoretical. Before meaningful empirical investigations of AI in dance education can be undertaken, the conceptual foundations and potential risks associated with its integration require clearer articulation.
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