
Encourages students to think creatively.
Creates dynamic and thought-provoking lessons.
Makes learning interactive and fun.
Inspires curiosity and a love for knowledge.
Always respectful and encouraging to all.
Dr. Jeff Meiners serves as a lecturer at the School of Education within the College of Education, Behavioural and Social Sciences at Adelaide University. With a Doctor of Education focused on dance curriculum as policy, he has extensive experience teaching dance and arts education across schools, preschools, and university programs. His early career included roles as a generalist primary class teacher in London responsible for music, drama, and dance, teaching at the International School in Geneva, Switzerland, leading a dance education team in London, and serving as arts team leader in the BEd primary teaching program at the University of Central England in Birmingham. Upon relocating to Australia, he managed Ausdance New South Wales Outreach Projects and acted as Community Representative for the Dance Board at the Australia Council for the Arts from 2002 to 2008. He received the 2009 Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Services to Dance Education.
Meiners has significantly influenced Australian arts education policy, contributing to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) as a reference group member for the Arts in the national curriculum (2009-2010), dance writer for the Arts Shape paper (2011), and subject expert on the Arts Advisory panel. He is a member of the International Editorial Board for Research in Dance Education and currently holds positions as a board member with Australian Dance Theatre, representative for the National Advocates for Arts Education (NAAE), and advisory panel member for the Australian Dance Awards. His research specializations include dance education, dance curriculum, arts education, and young children and the arts. Notable publications encompass "The (Im)possibility of primary arts teacher education" (CEPS Journal, 2025), "Towards a socially just dance curriculum entitlement" (Australian Educational Researcher, 2021), "First Nations dance in the school curriculum: perspectives from an Australian university" (International Journal of Education & the Arts, 2022), "Creative and body-based learning: redesigning pedagogies in mathematics" (Journal for Learning through the Arts, 2019), and "Contextualizing dance education globally and locally" in The Palgrave Handbook of Global Arts Education (2017).
