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This thesis recounts the development through fieldwork in primary schools of a distinctive performance pedagogy that bridges drama and live art. Two inter-connected strands run through the thesis. First, a praxis in the context of the primary school curriculum involves the creation of learning spaces through performance work which embrace qualities of ownership and subjectivity within imaginative and participatory practices. This prompted a shift from live art to more conventional drama praxis and has special benefits for disadvantaged and marginalised children. Historically, the thesis sits within Buckingham and Jones (2001) description of the “cultural turn” towards the creative industries. In the years following New Labour’s election victory (1997) a number of influential documents and directives were launched to promote creative learning in schools. The creative agenda emerged at a time when teachers experienced unprecedented levels of control over, and public scrutiny of, their everyday working lives; it was a period dominated by a “bureaucratisation” of education. I have positioned practice in the midst of reform, which at times appeared to be pulling in opposite directions. Secondly, a conceptual framework examines the “crisis of representation” (Denzin, 1997) in relation to lived experience and the written word. Writing often fails to capture the ephemeral nature of the performance studies agenda. In performance, meaning is found in the moments between thought and expression and in the silence between words. But, whilst words cannot replicate reality, writing can offer a deep and long-lasting impression of the world we inhabit. In response to the crisis of representation the thesis works towards a polyphonous account of the research process, weaving between performance texts, narrative stories, diary entries and the writing of others. Poststructural and phenomenological perspectives have illuminated the shifting space between competing discourses and ways of seeing. Above all, this thesis is the product of work with children, made possible when the desire to imagine outweighs the reality and actuality of the present.

This thesis takes the form of an arts-based inquiry. It asks questions about pedagogical constraints in the context of teaching and learning in Higher Education Initial Teacher Training under the auspices of the neoliberal practices, which dominate the present educational landscape. The inquiry uses emergent methodologies relating arts-based practice as research and follows diverging routes, which intertwine between performance and exegesis. The exegesis, in conjunction with performance, present a reflexive narrative that meanders throughout the inquiry offering a critical exploration to the reader. The project involved a group of fourteen Post Graduate Certificate of Education, Drama Trainees working in collaboration with the researcher, to devise an original piece of theatre entitled, ‘Tractatus de Imagine Mundi’ (A View of an Imaginary World). The project took place over a three-week period (approximately eight rehearsals), which culminated in two public performances – one matinee and one evening. The ensemble worked together during the ‘Enrichment Phase of the PGCE course, as a voluntary activity. The intention of the inquiry is to examine the processes involved in creating and performing a piece of live theatre using dramatic inquiry and devising and to examine pedagogical experiences and interactions that materialise therein. It also takes in to account the audience/observers’ perspective of drama as event. The thesis explores experience and events in ways other than they first presented themselves. Using a pluralistic approach to theory, the inquiry examines notions of shared experience and embodied learning, and asks how both conscious and unconscious connections might lead to a deeper and agentive sense of learning. Using the concept of drama as event, the inquiry asks: What can drama do? and explores the generative potential of drama practices in the wider context of HE and Initial Teacher Training. This thesis draws together text and performance and concludes that prioritising ways of creating, engaging and fostering active learning rather than fearful compliance might offer a constructive ethical response to contemporary pedagogical challenges in HE.

This thesis presents a case study of the process involved in the staging of a Theatre in Education programme for students in secondary education, focusing on the production by Theatre in Education Company Big Brum of the play A Window, written by Edward Bond especially for the company. The main aim of the study is to clarify and illustrate the theory and practice of Edward Bond through the practice of Big Brum, in order to analyse how the working model might be developed in Drama in Education. Edward Bond is a playwright deeply concerned with finding ways to engage his audiences imaginatively, so that they can seek reason, claiming drama and imagination to have the same basis: they both address questions and provoke change, and inform values and judgments. In fact the playwright argues that drama structures can accommodate the essential need of children to ask questions and challenge culture. The theory of Edward Bond is examined and illustrated through the practice of the TIE Company Big Brum, which identifies its work in the same terms. The critical framework for examining the company’s practice is set by the theoretical arguments of the playwright as they are presented in nine basic elements of Bondian drama, defined in the process of literature review and during the field work. These elements are the Site, Story, Drama Event, Invisible Object, Cathexis, Enactment, Accident Time, Extreme and Centre. The findings of this research suggest that all these elements could be said to constitute the heart of Bond’s approach, but only if seen in light of a paradigm of questioning and of ‘imagination seeking reason’.

Researchers of drama education and literacy learning in Taiwan or the majority of western countries have suggested that the application of drama strategies in literacy teaching has a significant effect on students’ capacities for literacy learning. However, most research in Taiwan has been focused on the results and effects on the learner and not the teachers’ thoughts, problems, concerns and behaviours and there is an absence of research in Taiwan dealing with the problems and difficulties of implementation that the teacher who is new to using drama might face. Hence, one important consideration in this research is to investigate what kinds of factors or difficulties might impede or assist the motivation of teachers who are willing to bring new ideas and new materials, specifically the application of drama and picture books, to their literacy teaching. Another aim of this research, therefore, is to investigate the various dynamics and difficulties that might affect the success or otherwise of in-service education in drama for elementary teachers. This research explores five situations of experienced teachers Grade 3 teachers in four elementary schools in Taiwan while applying drama strategies and picture books in their literacy teaching. The data collection procedure was divided into two phases: the first phase of three interviews with the teachers I worked with and classroom observations made while they applied three teaching schemes in their classes; the second phase moving from the classroom level to the school level, and interviews with not only the teachers but also section administrators of the curriculum in each case school. The results of this study show that fear of the new application already had a negative effect which could reduce teachers’ commitments and motivation for change; especially when they were overloaded with their existing duties. In addition, the new application also indicated that there is a need to ensure that short courses are integrated within an overall framework for in-service development in drama education if there are to be positive outcomes of in-service work. Moreover, in this study, the school culture also affected the teachers’ practice and further professional development in these schools. In conclusion, although the results of this study cannot be generalised for the greater population of the elementary school teaching in Taiwan, it has provided valuable insights that might shape future professional development in this area. Ideally, this study will enable me to help develop effective, additional innovative programmes in Taiwan and provide other researchers with a framework for carrying out further research intended to improve the standard of teachers’ professional development.