This is a qualitative assessment of a theater arts peace education program for high-school students. We present the results of qualitative interviews with students who participated in a peace education program. They tell us in their own words what they believe they learned. Given that most peace education evaluation is quantitative or focuses on…

Beginning in the late 1990s the authors became convinced that their undergraduate psychology students needed classroom experiences that set the conditions for them to become more engaged with beauty. They recognized the intrinsic importance of beauty to human psychological development, beyond any utilitarian concerns. But they also believed that…

Building upon a First Nations circle metaphor this paper explores how employing the interrelated concepts of pedagogy, poiesis, politics, and public positioning can provide a more holistic approach in designing and assessing arts-based projects be they for instructional and/or research purposes. It takes a "postmodern" stance (Giroux, 1991),…

This article reviews Vygotsky's writings on arts (particularly logocentric art including the theater) and emotions, drawing on his initial exploration in "The Psychology of Art" and his final considerations set forth in a set of essays, treatises, and lectures produced in the last years of his life. The review of "The Psychology of Art" includes…

The three papers and the pictorial essay that follow Rustom Bharucha's keynote all originated at "Theatre Applications" (Central School of Speech and Drama, London, April 2010). One theme of the conference was "cultural geographies of dislocation, place and space"; the three papers and pictorial essay respond to that theme. All…

The author travelled to Jaipur, India, in June 2009 to run a project with a group of 12 young runaways at the Bal Basera Centre, a transitional shelter for boys under the age of 18. The Centre sits within the Jaipur Municipal Police force compound, just a few yards away from the City Railway Station. Bal Basera, or "transit home" in…

Fluency in reading is critical for becoming a successful reader and strongly correlates with reading comprehension. Fluency in reading refers to appropriate reading speed, accurate word recognition, appropriate phrasing, and appropriate expression when reading orally. Reader's Theater (RT) is a reading instructional method that requires readers to…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of internal and external focus of attention on novices' rehearsal evaluations. Thirty-two undergraduate instrumental music education students led bands in a series of three 6-minute rehearsals on their assigned excerpt. Prior to these rehearsals, participants were led in score study and…

The purpose of this action research study was to examine Reader's Theater as an instructional and motivational strategy for underachieving students (N = 24) in a ninth- and tenth- grade Literacy for Life classroom. The Literacy for Life course was designed to assist high school students reading below an eighth-grade level. The research took place…

Reader's theater is an activity in which students, while reading directly from scripts, are able to tell a story in its most entertaining form. Typically, teachers create or purchase premade scripts of stories, and students focus on reading those scripts in a fluent and expressive manner. However, in the lesson presented here, students turn the…

A diverse group of student teachers in an alternative certification program participated in seminars integrating Boal's "Theater of the Oppressed" (TO) activities. Participants created images and enacted scenes that recreated interactions with their students and also rehearsed ideas for taking action in the classroom. The research,…

In 2011, the author made the transition from teaching assistant to teaching artist. From 2007 to 2011 she was an assistant teacher at Marwen, an organization that provides free art classes for middle and high school students in the Chicago area. It was there that she began to realize how much she enjoyed helping people as a teacher, whether…

This paper explores how our "digital world" shapes the ways that young people want to be engaged and how those desires subsequently shape academic theatre spaces. The paper uses artefacts developed in a university classroom to demonstrate that pre-service theatre educators can create educational materials that interrogate and deploy multiple media…

The Ethiopian Orphanage Project was the brainchild of a prominent pediatrician who, through her foundation and private practice, has been saving the physical and emotional lives of children for years, both in the United States and abroad, with a focus on HIV+ orphans in developing countries. Three years ago, after introducing ARVs (antiretroviral…

This paper reports on research undertaken into the processes through which student teachers begin to formulate an identity as a professional teacher. Using Fuller's investigations into the attitudes of trainee teachers towards their courses (1969) as a baseline, a discussion is established on the place of the student voice in contemporary initial…