Scientific Research

dance4life international is not only dedicated to supporting young people becoming change agents in a very innovative way, we also acknowledge the importance of knowledge generation and development of theoretical discourse such as in the fields of communication for social change and social sciences. 

The overall aim for dance4life evaluation research will address outstanding questions about the impact of dance4life on the lives of young people and their communities, build the research capacity of dance4life countries by making local researchers central to the research process as well as including the target group in design and execution of research, and make recommendations to improve the efficiency and impact of the dance4life programme.

During  2009 and 2010, the University of Amsterdam (ASCoR) conducted research in 20 countries participating in dance4ife to understand the underlying factors for young people to get involved in dance4life. Using these outcomes, we developed together with the KIT (Royal Institute for the tropics) a multi-year evaluation plan to assess whether the organisation and its partners are creating impact and achieving the mission, and to see if social change is really being created at global and community level.

The outcomes of the 2009 research were presented at "Etmaal 2010" that took place in the city of Gent in Belgium during February 2010. The conference is about recent communication research.

In 2010 the first scientific publication on dance4life was written, with the title: dance4life: Evaluating a global HIV and AIDS prevention programme for young people using the Pre-Im framework for process evaluation.

Want to learn about the results of the first evaluation? Interested in reading about future plans 2011-2015? Click here...