Expanding the Stage for Inner-City Youth Through Play and Performance

• In Event: 56.081 - Roundtable Session 24
  In Roundtable Session: 56.081-15 - Learning out of School

Abstract

This article reports on an ethnographic study of a youth leadership program that utilizes play and performance to support the development of inner city youth. Participant observation and focus groups were used to learn about young people’s experience participating in the program and how they perceive its effect on their lives. The findings demonstrated that approaching the activities in the program as performances provided participants a way to practice being who they are not, a language for understanding their own development and, a way to become creators of developmental environments for themselves and others.

Author

• Carrie L. Lobman, Rutgers University