Jokering Performance Engagement: Awakening Science Students' Critical Consciousness Development for Social Change

• In Event: 25.086 - Sheraton Roundtable Session One - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 25.086-6 - Critical Issues in Schools, Schooling, and Culture

Abstract

Weaving an arts-based methodological approach, forum theatre, with science education to inspire engagement in a middle school science class examines the joker’s influence theorized by Boal’s (2002) Theatre of the Oppressed to foster social change. The concerns raised in this article are three-fold: how does forum theatre help middle school students connect socioscientific issues to cultivate a spirit of social justice activism? Second, what are the implications of jokering on engagement in science? Third, how does jokering develop student critical consciousness to recognize forms of oppression against marginalized groups? This autobiographical account demonstrates a science educator’s use of forum theatre to explore methods of engagement in science, student activism, and curricular/pedagogical models for developing student critical consciousness around socioscientific issues.

Author

• Tara Monique Nkrumah, University of South Florida - Tampa