52.039 - Theater of Liberation: Participatory Action Research and Cultural Flexibility in a Mostly White High School

Session Type: Demonstration/Performance

Abstract

This session will present a demonstration/performance of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) being conducted in the Pacific Northwest. The study employs Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed as both research tool and transformative strategy, and strives to deepen understanding of race relations while transforming rigid and fuzzy mindsets regarding racial identity in a privileged, mostly-White high school. The session will include forum theater performance, presented by student participant-researchers and joined by “spect-actors” in the session audience; intermittent periods of discussion will punctuate the session. The presenters’ aim is to provide a living, interactive portrait of institutional racism in order to demonstrate the potential for Theatre of the Oppressed to subvert oppression and foster cultural flexibility in mostly-White schools.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 2: Studies of diversity and variation with social contexts of education

Chair

• Susan Desha Stahl, University of Washington - Seattle

Papers

• Participatory Action Research in a Mostly White High School: Cultural Flexibility and Theater of the Oppressed - Susan Desha Stahl, University of Washington - Seattle

Discussant

• Antero Garcia, Stanford University