The state of scientific knowledge production about Dance: a review in journals of Physical Education (1987-2020)

The present study aims to register the production of scientific articles about dance in national Physical Education journals. For this, we carried out a content analysis of articles published in 26 selected journals between 1987 and August 2020. We found 363 articles published in the proposed period, focusing on subjects, webqualis


Introduction
Dance can manifest itself in society through multiple configurations. We can see their expressions in shows, therapy, leisure, and physical exercise, in the educational and scientific spheres, as well as other possibilities, i.e., it is a polysemic phenomenon (Muglia-Rodrigues & Correia, 2013). Nowadays, Dance is an autonomous knowledge field with specific undergraduate and graduate courses (Strazzacappa, 2006). However, this specificity does not halt the discussion about the practice in different areas of Social and Human Sciences, nor in the field of Physical Education and Sport, in which dance is frequently part of the curricula of undergraduate courses, as well as the theme of dissertations, theses, and scientific articles (Brasileiro, Fragoso & Gehres, 2020;Morandi, 2006).
Considering that Dance is a structural content of Physical education, this study aims to present how the development of knowledge construction in this area has been taking shape through the articles written in national journals of Physical Education. Though similar approaches have been used in previous studies-such as the work of Muglia-Rodrigues and Correia (2013), in which the authors explore the production in national journals between 2000 and 2010, and Brasileiro et al. (2020), which located articles between 1987 and 2018 -, we believe that this research can advance the portray of how Dance has been scientifically discussed in the journals of Physical education, through the use of methodological approaches and data different from those explored in previous texts.
We chose the theme because it is a subject commonly present in the curricula of Physical Education, thus, deserving the attention of the scientific community as well as the other curricular components of the area. We also believe in the dimension of Dance as a tool for individuals' integral development, able to promote physical and psychological benefits, artistic and expressive sensitiveness, and as an element of socialization, education, and intellectual stimulus. We also chose this field to stimulate an attempt to overcome the problems of training/lack of knowledge to approach the content in the pedagogical practices of Physical Education professionals, in pre-and in-service education, considering how much this phenomenon affects the practices, mainly in the school context. According to Assis (2018), many of these problems arise from the lack of valorization of body culture; obstacles imposed by the physical space (structure); the lack of experience (since school); the lack of scientific studies, and mistakes in the understanding of Dance, seen as fragments; prejudice (of gender, culture, or area of knowledge); and even the dispute among the knowledge areas in which Dance appears as a content. In this sense, this article aims to provide an updated review on the national production of Dance, pointing out details of the academic conjecture through articles on the area and identifying the themes, journals, and theoretical references most referenced to show the predominance and the gaps to be investigated.
We must remind that, as mentioned by Dart (2014), academic journals cannot be seen as a total representation of the production of a theme or a topic. However, to analyze the production of dance, journals are central considering that, as pointed out by the authors, they are valuable means of academic interlocution worldwide.
First, we will present the methodological pathways used in the research. Later, we describe the results on the most and least explored themes in the literature, the most common journals, and the references used to establish a national scientific production on Dance.

Methodology: the pathways taken
The delimitation of a review of the scientific knowledge considers the comments of Alves-Mazzotti (2006). The author stresses that it is essential to carry out a critical review of theories and studies in the production of new knowledge to point out inadequacies in dealing with the problems faced by Brazilian education. According to Teixeira and Megid Neto (2016), this methodological approach is valuable to see the construction of knowledge through time, identifying and making explicit the pathways of science, as well as proving a regularly updated database on different topics. Therefore, to analyze a part of the national scientific knowledge on Dance, we have used the method of Content Analysis as a tool to help unfold the questions listed. This approach advocates an exploration of empirical material to quantitatively treat data and elaborate e- ISSN 1980-6248 http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1980-6248-2020 Pro-Posições | Campinas, SP | V. 33 | e20200146EN| 2022 5/23 qualitative analyses using techniques that result in the description, classification, and interpretation of the context investigated (Guerra, 2006;Bardin, 2011;David & Sutton, 2011 We have used some criteria for the inclusion and exclusion of articles. First, we saw the articles published mainly in Brazilian journals; if that was not the case, they were excluded because they were not part of the scope of this investigation 6 . After, by reading the title, abstract, keywords, and, if necessary, the complete text, we observed if the production was essentially about dance; if not, it was excluded from the sample. Besides that, we have chosen not to restrict a priori a time framework, to locate more recent and late publications on Dance. However, during our explorations, we have noticed that in some journals where we have seen texts on Dance, there were articles in previous and posterior volumes not available in the explored databases. Therefore, we have also opted to examine each volume of the journals in which we found publications on the theme. Finally, we have located 26 journals of Physical Education and a total of 363 7 articles from 1987 (first publication found) to August 2020 (using as a limit the last volume published of each journal in the current year, therefore, productions after this period were not cataloged). 5 We selected these databases because they have a broad array of content, allowing different notions of the knowledge production about Dance in Brazil. 6 When in doubt if the article was from a national journal in the area of Physical Education, we accessed the journal's website and read its scope. Besides this, to solve any possible questions, we searched the information about the journal on the platform Capes-Sucupira. 7 In this link https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gU-iPUiT365ltsDfmHRQBw_a58_fT5Ko/view, people interested can access a table with the 363 articles found. After selecting the journals and articles, we started the second moment of the research: creating an electronic spreadsheet with the information of the texts. The following information was quantified: a) Name of the authors; b) Journals and their respective Webqualis; c) Topic of the articles; and d) Theoretical references. The information related to the researchers was collected via their Lattes Curriculum (http://lattes.cnpq.br/) and, when needed, on the sites of their universities. We stress that some authors did not have updated curricula or reliable pages with their academic information, which hindered data collection. Regarding the Webqualis, we took as a guideline the evaluation conducted on the journals inserted in Area 21 of Capes, the evaluation context in which Physical Education is part together with Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Speech Therapy. In this sense, it is important to mention that the Webqualis given to the journals located in this article refer to their grades in the area of Physical Education in the period 2013-2016, the evaluation that is still in effect.
The compilation of bibliographic references was manually done. We compiled all the references cited at the end of each article following the model name and surname (e.g.: Rudolf Laban). If the authors of the article referenced another text of the same author, we counted the name a second time. This manual labor was necessary because the software programs, which do almost instantly the crossing and the counting of article information, still cannot be used to create information in most journals of Physical Education in Brazil, as a great number of those are not indexed to the database normally contemplated by these programs (such as Scopus and Web of Science).
The topic of articles refers to the central topics discussed in each text, such as discussion on gender, health, history, and education. This coding was done mainly based on keywords because we understand that these textual elements translate the central idea of what will be explored by the authors (Dart, 2014;Seippel, 2018). We intended to add this information to guarantee the identification of dominant study objects in the articles found in Brazilian journals, allowing us to perceive the interests of the field from the first article located until today.
After the manual phase of cataloging, we inserted the data in the software program Nvivo 12 Plus to use the tool to word cloud. This tool allows the visualization of terms that appear more frequently in the texts; therefore, the greater the size of the word represented, the e- ISSN 1980-6248 http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1980-6248-2020 Pro-Posições | Campinas, SP | V. 33 | e20200146EN| 2022 7/23 more frequently they appeared in the articles selected. However, when necessary, these data were also supported by quantitative analysis. In this sense, we treated the data that needed quantification through statistical operations available in the same electronic spreadsheet.
We also highlight that this work does not intend to qualitatively evaluate the woks, the journals in which they are published, their references, or the theme. The intention was to, based on the publications in national journals, reflect on the gaps and dominances that surround the scientific production of Dance, as well as contribute with elements to better perceive the development of the study area.
After, we present the systematization of findings on the national production of articles about Dance. We start by the number of articles by journal and their respective Webqualis.

Journals and Webqualis: the productions about Dance
Academic journals are extremely important for the effective dissemination of scientific works. It is normally through them that researchers present their studies becoming, therefore, the main locus of academic communication in the world. (Phillips, 2020).
In table 1, we present the 26 Brazilian journals in the area of Physical Education more used to disseminate the production of scientific knowledge about Dance.  In Brazil, the Coordenação de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Capes) attributes certain "quality" standards for journals; this evaluation is increasingly more valued within the national academic system. According to Souza and Cunha (2020), the Webqualis given by Capes is a factor that imputes to journals a higher or lower attraction, mainly for Brazilian authors working in postgraduate programs, whose productivity logic is based on journals from the higher levels of Webqualis. These aspects, shown in Table 1, are more evident because, out of the 363 texts located, 250 were in, at least, B2 journals while 113 were published in B3 or lower journals.
When examining Brazilian scientific journals that most published about Dance, we can perceive the predominance of texts in journals whose scopes are closer to the epistemological lines of Social and Human Sciences and/or have heterogeneous interests, thus accepting publications on various approaches of knowledge. This tendency can be related, as detailed by Muglia-Rodrigues and Correia (2013), to the polysemy of Dance, that is, the array of phenomena and meanings behind this dancing phenomenon, which ends up demanding multiple social factors (mainly those on artistic, aesthetic, ritualistic, and symbolic notions) and demand from practice appropriations that go beyond the concepts of physical exercise and other biological aspects frequently used by Physical Education professionals. Out of the 26 journals found, only 6 have an exclusive focus on biological grounds, discrepancies that are even more evident when we analyze the main topics approached in the works found about Dance, in which the discussions in educational perspectives are predominant, as can be seen in the following section.

Topics and webs: what is highlighted in the articles of Dance
Based on the counting of the repeated terms in the keywords of the articles selected, we could see the distribution of most published topics in the journals in a word cloud. Thus, the bigger the word vertically, the more often the theme appeared during cataloging. In total, we registered 21 different approaches. Among the most recurrent themes, the first and most evident in figure 1 is "Educational aspects". Out of the 363 articles found, the topic represents 112 of them. "Health" appears 54 times, "Training" in 29 articles, "Handicap" and "Culture" with 27 and 25 publications each, while the discussion about "Psychological aspects", "Body" and "Aesthetic" corresponded, respectively to 19, 18, and 17 texts. Graphically smaller, we have "Gender", "History", "Leisure", and "Epistemology of Dance", with 13, 12, and 11 productions. The dimension is even smaller in the topics "Cinema", "Public Policies", "Art", "Religion", "Sociology", "Media", "Nutrition", "Referees and trainers" and "Economy with 3 works or less. We will analyze the most recurrent topics.
The articles focused on the topic "Educational aspects" are closely related to the educational aspects of Dance, mainly in school, mostly discussing the activity in school practice as a content taught by the Physical Education teacher. These works aim to show the possibilities, difficulties, and potentialities of pedagogical intervention in the process of teaching-learning children, young people, and adults.
The affinity we perceived between Dance and Education is also present in the mapping of the practice in Physical Education conducted by Brasileiro et al. (2020). However, in this previous study, the researchers found 92 publications with such epistemological characteristics, published until April 2018, numbers that portray an increase of 18 productions in August 2020.
Regarding "Health", we observed studies on the contributions of dancing practices to the practitioners' well-being. Investigations on the symptoms and injuries in dance, proposals to improve life quality, and practitioners' sociability are recurrent. Generally, the analyses on Dance and Health seek to show the results of its practice in practitioners' life quality, in a variety of contexts and public, from children in the school context up to older adults treating pathologies. The cataloged articles unanimously consider that Dance can offer benefits and satisfactory results for the vitality of practitioners.
After, the articles that approach "Training" reflect on Dance competitions and the preparatory processes pre and after competitions, as well as the analysis and evaluation of movements and comparative and methodological comparatives for the performance. They we even identified studies analyzing it in the context of competitive sport.
On the topic "Culture", we perceived a variety of studies on dance that characterize different cultural demonstrations. We highlight discussions on the practice of regional dance and dance as global cultural manifestations, as well as the appropriation of dance and its cultural resignification in different places. The texts refer to forró 8 , Japanese dance, belly dance, and African-Brazilian dance. We have noticed in the cataloged articles the plurality of problematization on culture and Dance, and the interest to unveil the manifestations in different specific dance styles of certain regions and ethnicities. However, we highlight the lack of studies about samba as a cultural manifestation in this area, the fandango gaúcho 9 , among so many other possibilities.
The discussions on "Psychological Aspects" are presented on studies about motivational factors, emotional states, self-esteem, anxiety, and sociability in dance. Among the most investigated styles were ballet, ballroom dance, breakdance, and urban dances. Regarding the specificity of the themes, we have found those on anxiety among professional dancers, factors for women to join, continue, and quit dance, the involvement of older adults in dance competitions, teenagers' motivation, and self-esteem regarding dance. In general, all productions in this axis indicate that dance can effectively promote improvements in participants' mood, and self-esteem, mental and physical health.
The publications on the theme "Body" reflect countless perspectives on the corporal manifestation of Dance. We could infer that the body in this theme was seen as a language, corporeal awareness, professional instrument, and subjective experience. In Nascimento's (2017) perspective, the body in this field has exceptional skills of movement, it is dynamic, able to move with technique, and is a proficiency that transcends itself as an instrument. Such conceptions, though not consensual, portray the cataloged publications, as they are seen in articles that perceive the Dancing body as movement, technique, instrument, and art.
The topic "Aesthetic" in the articles is based on questions and philosophical concepts of the aesthetic meaning of the activity and their different variations arising from the possible styles, taking Dance as a rich path of possibilities for those interested in these discussions.
Predominantly, the senses and meanings of aesthetics in this field were approximated to a phenomenological perspective that, directly and indirectly, supports studies identified with this theme.
The topic "Gender" was referenced in the articles approaching mainly the questions of corporeity and sexuality, stereotypes, femininity and masculinity, representation and selfperception. After investigating the relations of gender and sexuality in different spaces regarding masculinity in ballet, Wenetz and Macedo (2019) consider that Dance, in general, faces common challenges connected to the issues of gender and sexuality, mainly due to perspectives that characterize the activity as a universe essentially feminine. About this, we point out other articles we found with similar questions that deepen the discussion (Van Dyke, 1992;Stinson, 1995;, 1999;Saraiva, 2003).
When considering the topic "History", the publications vary among reports on the pioneering of dance teaching as a corporeal practice and studies on the memory, the meanings, and the scenario of Brazilian dance during the years. Singularly, we highlight the studies on the origin and development of dance styles from tradition until modernity. We stress that investigations on this topic are focused on studies strictly grounded on historical sources, mainly those from newspapers, minutes, and statues, common materials in History of Physical Education and Sports in Brazil (Melo & Fortes, 2010). However, we point out the lack of other empiric material, such as images, videos, and social networks, which could provide rich contextual pathways for those interested in these approaches.
The topic "Leisure" is presented in articles that aim to demonstrate based on case studies and reports of experiences, Dance as a type of relaxation, fun, and entertainment. In the cataloged texts, we see that the topic "Leisure", within Dance, is a field of multiple directions, explored through a wide array of themes, such as parties, citizenship, community, and the social realities in this area. These themes are developed in segments close to school education and teacher education.
The discussions on the "Epistemology of Dance" try to offer a general panorama of the area, mapping and describing aspects of the practice and pointing out problems, challenges, and new perspectives for the field. The published studies were normally conducted by researchers legitimated in the area of Dance, agents inserted for a certain time in the scientific field, and who wrote different materials (articles and books), thus, having a scientific capital with certain notoriety to explore the workings of the academic universe. Other aspects included in this theme are the discussions on the concept of Dance and the establishment of a subfield of Dance knowledge in the courses of Physical Education.
We identified studies on habitus and the practice of Dance in Sociology, the projects of Dance in public policies, and the sacred and profane dimension of Dance in religion, among other studies that analyzed and problematized this subject. We could see that Dance, as a structural content of Physical Education, allows a plurality and complexity of factors to be explored but that, for adverse reasons, was not published with the numerical precision as other themes.
Therefore, we should highlight the multiplicity of topics that can still be investigated in scientific research in the area of Dance, providing the academic community with a network of investigative possibilities. After, we will focus on the most frequent bibliography located in the catalog work. In this sense, it shows the names of authors highlighted as references in the national academic articles.

Bibliography, who the articles reference
As in the previous section, we present the number of references in a word cloud. These data were counted based on the repetition of the terms located in the references of each article mapped, that is, the bigger the word name vertically, the most often they appeared in the cataloging. We highlight that among the most recurrent bibliographical supports, we highlight the term "Brasil", referring to the national laws, guidelines, and documents, referenced 124 times, The researcher Dionisia Nanni, who stands out by her contributions in the areas of Didacts, Methodology, and Dance Pedagogical Practices. The author has a wide array of studies involving classic ballet, jazz, folklore, and meditation -to mention some areas that help to highlight her trajectory in Dance. Thus, Nanni built her career centered on teaching with studies toward a pedagogical proposal on the creative and autonomous process of Dance teaching (Pacheco, 1998 Final remarks: the panorama of Dance in the journals of Physical

Education so far
By the end of this article, we could see how the scientific production of dance is materialized in national journals of Physical Education. Through the analysis of these journals, it is possible to perceive a panorama of the subjects discussed, the most active national journals of Physical Education in the area, and the most referenced authors. We could see that the discussions about Dance and educational aspects were predominant in our findings, as well as the use of bibliographical references with theoretical and practical proximities with dancing activities. Therefore, we consider that the different topics listed are characterized by a perspective of Dance that explores the aesthetic experience, autonomy, creativity, and practitioners' critical sense. Considering this scenario, we point out that this field, within the scientific production in national journals in Physical education, works to widen the horizons of dance practitioners in different sectors, such as social and cultural, seeking mobilizations beyond the usual dance practice.
Regarding the bibliographic references, a great part of the works defends a methodology that proposes the emancipation of people based on dance. About the most used theoretical references, we can see a rich field of possibilities for future studies. We understand that, by presenting a panorama of the main bibliographic tendencies, the findings of this research can guide those interested in the theme to analyze the analytical density of the uses of certain authors in the productions about Dance.
We highlight that the analytical approach used can bring limitations, as we understand that there are multiple methodological segments and information that we could have explored, for instance, the authors of the analyzed articles, their respective genders, and institutions.
However, we believe that this study, through this methodological approach and data display, pointed out advancements, including qualitative ones, in the scientific debate on Dance in national journals.
On that premise, we highlight that the results found in this investigation are pertinent to the national journals and that the panorama described refers to a specific scenario of Physical education, reflecting only part of the knowledge area produced in Dance. We also see the need to broaden such panorama with studies encompassing more journals, areas of knowledge, and countries, to provide a more realistic portrait of the scientific production on the theme. We believe that new reviews can explore such prerogatives, showing to the academic community new characteristics of the scientific state of knowledge about Dance.