Applied theatre at the heart of educational reform: an impact and sustainability analysis

Abstract

This article reports on an impact assessment study, conducted between 2007 and 2009, of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario's (ETFO) Poverty and Education Project, an intervention which encouraged educators to challenge their assumptions about poverty and explore collaborative opportunities to mitigate the effects of poverty in their schools. A touring theatre production (Danny, King of the Basement), professional development in drama, supporting curriculum documents, and other financial and material resources were provided by the Federation to a selection of schools serving students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds across the province. Our purpose was to understand the impact and sustainability of an applied theatre intervention on a school's ability to address the issue of local poverty effectively. Our findings report on the role that the applied theatre intervention played in effecting change in relationships, initiating dialogue, and deepening understanding of social issues. Our analysis demonstrates that the applied theatre intervention had a positive effect on pedagogical relationships and acted as a catalyst in opening up dialogue between teachers and students, helping both to explore new conceptions of teaching and learning in communities facing economic challenges.

Keywords:

• applied theatre
• theatre intervention
• social culture
• impact assessment
• sustainability
• poverty
• school relationships and dialogue
• social issues
• pedagogy
• professional development

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Luisa Sotomayor, former research officer at the Centre for Urban Schooling, for her invaluable contributions to the conceptualising and report writing of the first year of the study.

Notes

1. See http://www.etfo.ca.

2. For more information about the play and its Ontario tour, see http://www.etfo.ca/AdvocacyandAction/SocialJusticeandEquity/Danny/Documents/Danny%20King%20of%20the%20Basement%20Tour%20Flyer.pdf.

3. The Federation was critiqued for the use of the term ‘Poverty’, some feeling it was potentially too stigmatising. It was argued, by the Federation, that one of the problems schools face is just such a reluctance to clearly name the issue. The term poverty remained in the title.

4. It seemed important, as researchers, to acknowledge explicitly the limited role that a play, or any other form of artistic intervention, might play in the actual lives of economically marginalised children. Rather than anticipating great transformations, we sought to view this project as a way to identify small moments of agency in a context of considerable constraint.

5. See http://www.surveymonkey.com.

6. Other findings from the first year pertaining to the locally determined school-based initiatives and the leadership styles in each school are beyond the scope of this paper.