“We’re Here Because We’re Black”: A Critical Theater-Based Pedagogy and Methodology for Understanding Student Experiences of Schooling in Western Canada

• In Event: The Power and Limitations of Critical Research as Praxis: Youth, Race, and Schooling in Western Canada

Abstract

This paper presents findings from an interdisciplinary qualitative research project examining the use of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) (Boal, 1979) for exploring notions of identity, belonging, and culture with francophone secondary students in a context of diversity (Schroeter, 2009). A research program that prioritized both principles of critical pedagogy (Freire, 1997/1970; Giroux, 1992; Simon, 1992) and arts-based methods of inquiry (Dolan, 2001) was developed to conduct this project. Critical pedagogy views schooling as an institution that reflects and reproduces social inequities, and seeks to restructure education as a dialogue between students and teachers. TO and more recent incarnations of this form of popular theatre (Diamond, 2007; Leonard, 1999) are rooted in Freire’s (1997/1070) notion of dialogic education. This approach restructures the relationship between actors and spectators, enabling them to engage in a critical and embodied examination of social problems together and engage in a search for possible solutions.
I conducted a case study (Merriam, 1998; Stake, 1995) of six African-born students with a refugee experience and three Canadian-born students in a French minority language school in Western Canada. While I observed and conducted seven semi-structured interviews (Fontana & Frey, 2005) with students and teachers in the school, I also facilitated a TO workshop with a group of nine students in a non-academic program. During the workshop, six Black African-born students came to their non-academic program, race, and socioeconomic status as problems limiting their imagined social futures (New London Group, 2000).
In this paper, I analyze audio-recorded class discussions, students’ improvisations, a forum theatre scene (Boal, 1979) they performed, and interviews with teachers and students in order to reveal how African-born students deployed their identifications as migrants, racialized and ethnic Others. This decision enabled the youth to offer “counternarratives” (Delgado, 1995) to the authorized discourses (Bourdieu, 1991) that were circulating in their school about programmatic decision-making and interpersonal relations in the school. I argue that the pedagogy and research methodology adopted provided an important opportunity for students to speak back to the teachers and administrators acting on their behalf.
As Canada continues to admit more than 200,000 immigrants and refugees each year (James, 2001; Canadian Council for Refugees, 2011), many of whom are under 19 years-old, public schools represent an important site of first contact with Canadian institutions and culture for these students. Developing an understanding of how students are positioned by administrative interventions made on their behalf is essential to creating an educational environment in which all students can learn and succeed. Projects like this one are important as they create opportunities for students to engage in discussions about their community, school, and curriculum, which is key for moving research on refugee youth out of the field of discourse and into the fields of action and policy.

Author

• Sara Schroeter, The University of British Columbia