Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 

About: Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Drama & Theatre studies. Over the lifetime, 522 publications have been published receiving 2674 citations.

International handbook of research in arts education

Abstract: In this extraordinary International Handbook of Research in Arts Education, Liora Bresler gathers over 100 scholars from 35 countries and 20 languages. As she foregrounds in her Introduction, although the arts in some nations have developed advocacy partnerships to justify their existence in education over the past 40 years, disciplines have largely preserved their separate identities with few pragmatic connections and little cross-disciplinary awareness to enrich their respective theoretical knowledge and pedagogical practices. The two-fold aims of this handbook are to synthesise existing scholarship in music, visual art, dance, drama, and creative literature in order to facilitate cross-fertilisations and advance transformations within and across disciplines (pp. xvii xix). Given that cross-disciplinary fertilisations are left up to readers’ imaginations if one reads both volumes in their entirety, I will attempt to cross-fertilise research in applied theatre by highlighting and juxtaposing those issues I find most significant in other arts disciplines in keeping with Bresler’s aims. Readers may pick and choose from among 13 sections (written by few drama/theatre authors) that cover inter-dependent topics: History (Bolton), Curriculum (O’Toole and O’Mara), Assessment and Evaluation (Schonmann), Composition (McKean), Appreciation (Schonmann; J. Hughes), and Museums and Cultural Centers (C. Hughes, Jackson, and Kidd) in Part One; and Informal Learning, Child Culture (Woodson), Social and Cultural Issues (McCammon), The Body (Osmond), Creativity (Gallagher), Technology, and Spirituality in Part Two each summarised in Preludes by section editors. Within each section, many authors describe existing studies without necessarily synthesising the accumulated evidence, making it extremely difficult to ascertain which research questions remain for future explorations. While most chapters address research conducted in North America, northern Europe, and Australia, readers will also find valuable counterpoints from leading educators in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and South America in dialogic International Commentaries and Interludes that extend global conversations.

Process drama: the use of affective space to reduce language anxiety in the additional language learning classroom

Abstract: This paper describes a research project designed to find out what happens when process drama strategies are applied to an advanced level of additional language learning. In order to answer this question, the author designed and facilitated six process drama workshops as part of a third-year course of Italian at a university in Brisbane, Australia. Results indicated that through the medium of role, authentic contexts and dramatic tension, participants in the study were able to engage in the target language producing more spontaneous communication. Results also revealed that the affective space generated by process drama was beneficial in reducing a degree of language anxiety in some of the participants.

‘But why do I have to take this class?’ The mandatory drama-ESL class and multiliteracies pedagogy

Abstract: This article seeks to understand the role of drama pedagogy in second/additional language learning with data drawn from a school-based ethnographic study of English language learners taking a drama-English as a Second Language (ESL) course. Being aware that all drama teaching does not automatically lead into improvement in language learning, it carefully explores the experiences of a group of English language learners taking a mandatory drama-ESL class after having passed a proficiency exam. Drawing from her data and from theoretical work in drama education, second language education and postcolonial discourse, the author proceeds to examine two aspects of multiliteracies pedagogy: situated practice and multimodality. One key finding is that, despite initial resistance from the majority of the English language learners about taking this mandatory class, the drama pedagogy used in this classroom drew on students’ personal and cultural experiences in the creation of identity texts and thereby provided room ...

Drama education and second language learning: a growing field of practice and research

Abstract: Drama does things with words. It introduces language as an essential and authentic method of communication. Drama sustains interactions between students within the target language, creating a world of social roles and relations in which the learner is an active participant … The language that arises is fluent, purposeful and generative because it is embedded in context. (Kao and O'Neill 1998, 4)

Dirty truth: personal narrative, victimhood and participatory theatre work with people seeking asylum

Abstract: An emphasis on personal narratives characterises a great deal of participatory theatre practice with refugee groups. It is important to understand how these narratives are conditioned by bureaucratic performance if practitioners are to avoid re-enactments of victimhood in participatory projects. Bureaucratic performance concerns the legal and juridical structures that exist beyond the theatre within which asylum seekers’ stories are created. These structures require narratives of persecution if the asylum seeker is to be successful in his or her claim for asylum, and such narratives often make their way into participatory work. By examining three scenes from the play A Letter from Home, it is possible to identify different approaches to the presentation of personal narrative in performance. The most positive of these approaches served to undermine the figure of the refugee as a victim, at the same time as it productively destabilised some of the boundaries between participant and facilitator.