In this article, we examine the fraught task of doing drama-based work on the climate crisis with youth in schools at a time of increasing climate fatalism. We focus on what a virtual, speculative fiction writing and performance workshop achieved with students in Coventry, Kaohsiung and Bogotá by inviting them to rewrite the futures of local…

This study investigated whether the Science on Stage, a theatre and drama project, taught middle-school students more about the lives and discoveries of great scientists and whether it helped them develop positive views and attitudes towards the science course and scientists. This 8-month study employed an embedded design. The sample consisted of…

This paper highlights an investigation of how middle school students responded to a theatre performance designed to portray science as a humanistic and relatable endeavour that youth -- similar to the youth in the audience -- engage in during their everyday lives. The play included in this study was generated as a part of a design research project…

This mixed methods counterbalanced study compared the gain score means of two different approaches to vocabulary acquisition--Vocabulary Theater (VT) and Teacher Directed Instruction (TDI) for 8th grade students from three schools in New York. The purpose of the study was to explore the effects of a peer teaching approach on students' vocabulary…

In this research, two questions related to arts integration are studied: First, the extent to which sixth and seventh grade students' language arts and mathematics performance, as well as their engagement with school are positively impacted by classroom settings in which theater strategies are integrated into language arts instruction; and second,…

This study investigated the impact of Readers Theater on eighth-grade students, the majority of whom were reading below grade level. Over six weeks of a short story unit, one class participated in Readers Theater. The comparison group of like-ability students received more traditional literary and vocabulary instruction. Quantitative measures…

The last several years have seen a growing resolve among educators and policymakers to assure the place of a solid arts education in U.S. schools. In 1997, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) conducted a national assessment in the arts at grade 8. The assessment included the areas of music, theater, and visual arts. For each of…

Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1997 Arts Assessment for eighth-grade students show that female students outperformed male students in every category of assessment for all three art forms assessed: (1) music; (2) theater; and (3) visual arts. In contrast to assessments in other subjects, nonpublic school students…

This investigation examined students attending U.S. and Canadian visual and performing arts secondary schools for distinguishing personality characteristics, locus of control, acceptance of talents, labeling, family dynamics, anxiety levels, perceived personal and school problems, and views of peers, artists/teachers, and counselors. One hundred…