Brian Edmiston

Drama as Ethical Education.

In this article the author outlines a theory of drama as ethical education. He contrasts his theoretical and philosophical framework, which is grounded in the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin, with what he argues is the neo-Aristotelian approach developed by Joe Winston. In an analysis of several practical examples he examines the pedagogical implications of both frameworks and illustrates differences in assumptions about what it means to become ethical. He considers the relevance of a theory of discourse for analysing how ethical understandings can develop in dialogue about narratives. Further, he discusses how the concept of positioning can complicate our view of the ethical dimension of ongoing interactions in and out of role. Finally, the author shows how dialogic sequencing can create conditions in which students may begin to re-examine the ethical assumptions of their discourses. He closes by raising what he considers to be some of the more pressing questions about drama’s potential as ethical education.

Playing with Children, Answering with Our Lives: A Bakhtinian Approach to Coauthoring Ethical Identities in Early Childhood.

ABSTRACT In this paper I develop an alternative to prevailing moral development assumptions in early childhood education. Drawing on a Bakhtinian theoretical framework, theories of identity formation, and examples from my longitudinal research study of child–adult play, I reframe development as a lifelong process of coauthoring ethical identities that may begin in early childhood when adults join children in dramatic play.

Shakespeare, rehearsal approaches, and dramatic inquiry: Literacy education for life

Abstract Drawing on data from a collaborative action research study of teaching Shakespeare’s King Lear conducted by a university professor and a classroom teacher in the teacher’s middle school classroom, this article analyses how rehearsal and inquiry approaches to drama pedagogy can be used to promote the type of authentic literacy learning long advocated by scholars. We argue for the use of two complementary dramatic dimensions of literacy teaching. An active, collaborative, ensemble‐based rehearsal approach, rooted in both dramatic play and dramatic performance, promotes engagement in, and meaning‐making about, the fictional world of a text. Equally, a dramatic inquiry‐based approach extends rehearsal approaches and creates a classroom community that supports the development of literacy social practices.

‘Is that what you really want?’: a case study of intracultural ensemble-building within the paradoxes of ‘urbanicity’

Ensemble-building is a practice within drama education that is understood to be a powerful metaphor for democratic living. However, this ongoing work in classrooms also demands that teachers understand and enact a broad, interrelated range of knowledge, skills, and values that support participants’ encounters with conflict and representations of change. In this sense, ensemble-building is not simply about getting along, but embodies an ‘intracultural’ practice of ‘living together’ while learning and using creative strategies for ‘fighting together’. In this qualitative case study of ensemble-building as an intracultural practice we present the key forms of knowledge, skills and values that two teachers enacted to create conditions for trust and knowledge production with a group of African American students at a racially segregated urban secondary school and a collaboration between this group and multi-ethnic and multi-racial university students in a theatre arts programme. Their work, and the work of ensemble, we argue, is shaped by and within the intersections of ‘urbanicity’ where urban life is recognisable and lived beyond the boundaries of urban centres through the paradoxical conditions of rigidity and creativity, stability and mobility, and anonymity and visibility.

Building bridges: coauthoring a class handshake, building a classroom community

ABSTRACT Collaborative social practices that people participate in to coauthor, or co-create, support, and sustain, a classroom community are challenging to research and represent because they are fluid and emergent, and interdependent and cumulative, as they develop across time and space, across experiences and relations. In this article, we take a year-long look at how a weekly whole class greeting ritual, a Class Handshake, serves as a socio-epistemic-embodied-community building practice. We provide a rich description of the dialogic what and how of the Class Handshake ritual, and articulate connections between the Class Handshake and other classroom values and practices. We explore ways this collaborative social practice enacted values and relations that anchored a dialogic teaching and learning stance in this classroom community. We find that the Class Handshake functions like a “polyphonic web,” manifesting and perpetuating a sense of “We”-ness of this classroom community of practice. This study adds to classroom literature that considers dialogic stance and dialogic teaching and learning practices across time. Importantly, this sociocultural discourse analytic study extends attention beyond procedural moves to a big picture examination of purposeful, accretive, and coherent orchestrations of collaborative practices and relations that, together and across time, build classroom community.

“I’m trying to save some lives here!”: Critical dramatic inquiry in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the plans for and implementation of critical dramatic inquiry with middle school youth. The authors also provide a theoretical frame for understanding dramatic inquiry as an embodied, persuasive and reflexive practice that can inform and transform the ways youth and their teachers experience their own and others’ worlds. Throughout, the authors argue for the centrality of imagination in youth literacies and critical inquiry. Design/methodology/approach Working with Stetsenko’s (2008) concepts of contribution and agency, the authors considered the different ways youth “found [their] place among other people and ultimately, [found] a way to contribute to the continuous flow of sociocultural practices” (p. 17). Further, the authors considered Stetsenko’s (2012) reference to moral philosophy and the idea that “humans are understood as being connected with the world precisely through their own acts – through what has been termed “engaged agency” in moral philosophy (Taylor, 1995, p. 7)”. The authors read and annotated documents, noting key moments in the videos where youth collaborated in “finding a place among other people” and became “connected with the world […] through their own acts”. Findings The authors identified three ways dramatic inquiry orients youth in time-space, offering addresses and possibilities for answerability that direct their actions toward critical, ethical questions: creating a life through embodied positioning, reflecting on action through transformation of representations and establishing a direction for one’s own becoming through persuasion and answerability. These three modes of contributing to a dramatic inquiry extend current research and thought about drama by pointing to specific contributions to and purposes for action in drama experiences. Research limitations/implications This work represents a single two-session workshop of teacher research with middle school youth engaged in dramatic inquiry, and is, therefore, the beginning of a conceptual framework for understanding dramatic inquiry as critical sociocultural practice. As such, this work will need to be developed with the aim of extending the dramatic inquiry work across several days or weeks, to trace youth insights and subsequent actions. Practical implications Critical literacy educators who want to implement dramatic inquiry will find clear descriptions of practices and an analytic framework that supports planning for and reflection on social change arts-based experiences with youth. Social implications The authors argue that educators who aim to support youth actions, in relation to multiple viewpoints and possible futures, need to pose imagined and dramatized addresses to which youth can imagine and embody possibilities and express possible answers (Bakhtin). Based on Stetsenko’s transformative activist stance, the authors argue that drama-based experiences disrupt the everyday so youth may collectively explore and contribute to an emerging vision of equity and belonging. Originality/value Few studies have engaged Stetsenko’s transformative activist stance as a way to understand learning, social change and the role of imagination. This study describes and explores a unique instantiation of process drama informed by critical sociocultural theory.

Promoting Teachers’ Ideological Becoming: Using Dramatic Inquiry in Teacher Education

Freedman and Ball propose a language, literacy, and learning research agenda meant for practitioners as well as researchers, which they locate in Bakhtin’s notion of development, or “ideological becoming.” Language and literacy educators change how they teach when they come to see themselves differently in relation to the students in their classrooms. This article provides a theory and description of practice that suggests potential productive uses of a dramatic inquiry-based dialogic pedagogy in college classrooms intended to promote teachers’ ideological becoming. After first contextualizing Freedman and Ball’s research agenda in terms of current teacher education practices and challenges, including an oppressive status quo in our increasingly culturally and ethnically diverse schools and colleges, and then providing a theoretical framework, a teacher educator–researcher describes his use of dramatic inquiry pedagogy using carefully chosen picture books in an MA class for domestic and international students, which provided participants with opportunities to dialogue with different schooling practices and thus develop their own ideologies. Analysis of narrative responses from three teachers indicates their ideological development in relation to promoting inclusion and antioppressive practices as an integral part of their language and literacy teaching.