Teaching Kathak in France: The Interdisciplinary “Milieu”

Abstract

This article approaches the idea of interdisciplinarity as an aspect of the globalization of pedagogical practices through the teaching of kathak dance in France. Our study positions itself in a didactic research program that tackles the question of interdisciplinarity under the theoretical angle of joint action between teacher and students (Ranganathan 2004; Ranganathan and Petrefalvi 2007; Sensevy and Mercier 2007; Loquet, Roncin, and Roesslé 2007; Loquet 2007). In this program, “didactics” is defined as the science whose object of study covers educational, teaching, and training practices. Our contribution to this program concerns the field of knowledge related to the body, in particular in sports and artistic activities (Loquet 2006). The ambition of research in didactics currently taking place in France is to show that the teacher's action cannot be treated in a unilateral way, independent of the student's action, just as the interactions between teacher and student cannot be set apart from the objects of knowledge that unite them. In this model, we grant a central place to the concept of “milieu,” seen in a general way as the space where the teacher and the students interact.