This study explores the elusive “X-factor” of dance professionalism through the lens of dispositions—habitual orientations of thought, feeling, and action that underpin artistic practice. Using Q methodology, five dance artist-educators ranked 24 disposition statements, revealing three interrelated profiles: the Disciplined Artist, the Adaptive Artist, and the Relational Artist. Findings demonstrate that dispositions are not discrete traits but clusters of moral, affective, and performative orientations that together form the professional identity of the dancer. Q methodology enabled tacit values to surface as interpretable patterns of meaning, illuminating the hidden curriculum of dance education. The study argues that unveiling these dispositional constellations makes explicit the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of professionalism. Articulating the dispositional “signature” of the discipline renders the X-factor teachable and assessable, offering educators a framework for fostering holistic artistry—what makes not only the competent dancer, but the A+ artist.
This study investigates how educators understand and address gender within cultural entrepreneurship education (CEE) in art and design higher education in the Netherlands. CEE has become central to preparing students for increasingly precarious cultural labour markets and, in Europe, is informed by fields long criticised by feminist scholars for privileging traditionally masculine-coded norms such as competitiveness and risk-taking. Despite this, gender has received virtually no explicit attention in CEE policy and research. Drawing on interviews with 18 CEE educators and (co-)heads of Fine Art programmes across all eight state-funded institutions in the Netherlands, the study identifies a disconnect between educators’ awareness of gender inequality and its largely ad hoc integration into teaching. Despite their awareness, educators reinforce this disconnect through gender blindness and non-performativity. Their accounts sustain the belief in CEE’s neutrality, potentially disadvantaging women despite their majority presence in Fine Art higher education.
Generative AI poses a distinctive challenge for humanities pedagogy, one that existing AI-in-education frameworks do not fully address. Humanities teaching is organized around interpretive openness, productive ambiguity, close reading, and a conception of evidence as something argued for rather than merely cited. In common classroom use, generative AI favors fluency, plausibility, and resolution in ways that work against those commitments. This article proposes a conceptual framework that treats AI as material for interpretive inquiry rather than as a tool for efficiency. Drawing on rhetorical analysis, dialogic pedagogy, and theories of revision, it develops four instructional roles for AI in the humanities classroom: object of interpretation, rhetorical artifact, revisable draft, and dialogue partner. The article argues that the most productive response to AI in the humanities begins with disciplinary redesign rather than with adoption or prohibition--and that the difficulty the humanities cultivate is not an obstacle to learning but its method.
This study explores how academic xenophobia and class hierarchies intersect within South African higher education institutions. Drawing on a decade of the author’s personal experiences through autoethnography and vignettes, it reveals the subtle, non-violent forms of xenophobia embedded in recruitment, classroom dynamics, and academic interactions. The research demonstrates how race, class, and nationality intersect to marginalise foreign academics, reinforcing exclusion and perpetuating structural inequalities rooted in apartheid. Framed by intersectionality and critical race theory, the study argues that these institutional practices mirror broader societal discrimination. The implications extend beyond individual experiences, affecting academic culture, staff wellbeing, and the pursuit of inclusive scholarship. By centring my lived experiences as a site of critical inquiry, this study contributes to the humanities debate by calling for a re-examination of policies and attitudes within universities to better support equity, diversity, and an inclusive scholarly environment.
The arts and humanities have historically made a significant contribution to disability studies. This paper seeks to build on this history by exploring what researchers from these disciplines consider to be priority future research agendas. Following a review of the relevant forward focused literature, a qualitative investigation was undertaken with participants who are currently involved in disability inclusive arts and humanities research. The analysis reveals that researchers have optimism with regards to the potential of their disciplines to explore themes relating to disability inclusion, but to achieve this potential, action must be taken to address both thematic and process related concerns. Both researchers and funders must ensure that any research on disability is accessible, meaningfully inclusive, and addresses existing power imbalances. Further critical methodological approaches are needed to understand of the contribution, impact, and future potential of the arts and humanities to explore disability studies.
