Poster #85 - The Cognitive, Social, and Emotional Skills Taught in an Adolescent Theatre Classroom

• In Event: 3-003 - Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

Theory and research suggest that acting and theatre classes can promote social skills and understanding (Larson & Brown, 2007; Taft, 1955; Levy, 1997) including emotional control (Goldstein & Lerner, 2017) empathy (Goldstein & Winner, 2012) and theory of mind (Nettle, 2006). Yet there is no real underlying theory of causal mechanism, or which activities within acting classes may be fostering these skills (Goldstein, Lerner & Winner, 2017; Mages 2006). To understand the effects theatre classes have for all students involved, as well as to conceptualize and develop interventions that use theatrical activities for positive developmental outcomes, a foundational understanding of the cognitive and social constructs used in these classes must be undertaken. This is critical not only to understand the art form itself, but also how pedagogies using theatrical techniques (e.g. Drama Based Pedagogies, Process Drama) may work.

To accomplish this, we filmed 50 hours of high quality theatre classes at two different high schools for the arts, across grades 9-12. When then transcribed and subjected teacher statements to grounded constructive theory analysis to determine the habits of mind discussed in the classes. We focused on two different questions: 1) What is the structure of a theatre class (that is, what activities does a theatre class consist of). 2) What cognitive, social, and emotional constructs are discussed, taught, or implicitly communicated during such classes?

We found that 50% of class time is spent on warm up activities that promote: 1) Physical warm up and understanding of the physical self. 2) Mental warm up including both mindfulness (meditation, calming) exercises and executive function (task switching, attentional control) exercises. 3) Group warm up involving trust and ensemble building exercises (group juggling, walking with blindfolds).
The other half of class time involves what traditionally might be thought of as “acting”: engaging in discussion of acting theory and discussion of characters, mental states, and performance, and then practice of the theory discussed and assigned themes.

Several overarching Habits of Mind promoted through theatre classes emerged: 1) metacognition and reflection on emotions, physical states, beliefs and behaviors; 2) engaging and focusing on process rather than having a goal orientation 3) Connection of physical state and behavior, including interoception and proprioception 4) Trusting yourself and others around you.

These findings represent an essential first step towards understanding the implicit and explicit teaching strategies employed by theater teachers to encourage youth development that are already occurring in classrooms. Without this foundational understanding, use of theatrical techniques in intervention will continue to be misunderstood or misused. By defining the core psychological components of a theater class, we can move towards causal research illuminating the mechanisms for the long-theorized and empirically supported social and emotional benefits of engaging in acting classes.

Authors

• Thalia R. Goldstein, George Mason University
  Presenting Author

• Brittany Thompson, George Mason University
  Non-Presenting Author