Applied Theater as Methodological Intervention in Qualitative Research With Urban Youth

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This session offers applied theatre as a methodology to enrich understanding of urban youth, often characterized as disengaged and deficient. In this symposium, four papers compare the use of theatre methodologies across two qualitative research projects with urban youth: a local project with a homeless youth shelter and a global multi-sited project of drama classrooms in urban schools. This session not only maps out how theatre methodologies were used in these two large-scale projects, but using ‘performance’ of embodied applied theatre components, the papers also demonstrate the impact of such theatre methodologies as evidenced in data analyses. This symposium seeks to comprehensively illustrate the affective value of theatre methodologies that works towards decolonizing qualitative research with urban youth.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Qualitative Research

Cosponsor

• SIG-Arts-Based Educational Research

Chair

• Dirk J. Rodricks, University of Toronto

Papers

• Methodological Resilience Through Drama as Ethnographic Practice - Anne Wessels, University of Toronto - OISE

• Applied Theater Methodology as Pedagogy: Drama Engagement, Affect, and Embodied Creative Resilience - Rachel Rhoades, University of Toronto

• Facilitating a "Community Cultural Wealth" of Drama Classrooms Using Applied Theater Methodology - Dirk J. Rodricks, University of Toronto

• Mobilizing Affect Through Intercultural Applied Theater Methodologies - Kathleen M. Gallagher, OISE/University of Toronto

Discussant

• Madeleine Grumet, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill