Learning from Krumping: collective agency in dance performance cultures

Abstract

The recognized importance of collaboration has driven the development of learning environments and technologies. Instructional efforts have concentrated on supporting students' development of collaborative agency - knowing how to collaborate in small groups. Much less emphasis has been placed on students' collective agency that would involve participation in large groups prominent in today's social networking sites and online cultures. Here we use our observations in an urban community technology center where groups of 30-40 youth self-organized their dance performances called Krumping and/or Clowning to inspire rethinking from collaborative to collective agency in learning. Our analysis is based on four years of ethnographic field work that helped us articulate different aspects of activity structures that promote collective agency, distributed leadership, and the role of performance. We use these findings to reflect on our conceptions of learning and the design of learning technologies and environments.