The critical understanding of Theatre in Education (TIE) presented in this thesis focuses on ‘TIE into Schools’ and its effect. The author takes the view that students’ subjectivity was influenced by the dominant mores of elements of society, such as family and school, and less often, by individual, autonomous decision. Case studies of practices that are identified with the tenets of TIE were carried out using approaches based on the principles and methods of a critical pedagogy approach. How could the TIE approach be seen as a critical pedagogy? This question is examined predominantly through the lens of Paulo Freire and Henry A. Giroux’s thoughts on education and teachers. In addition to an understanding of the tenets of TIE and the tenets of critical pedagogy, this thesis presents a criticism of its discursive approach and also a criticism from the researcher as a participant observer. This narrative approach helps explore the human side of the experience thus keeping real life issues to the fore. Fieldwork episodes of TIE practice in three different levels of schools, the Taipei He-te Primary School, 10 different senior high schools and the National Taiwan University are presented in the context of the students’ differing ages in an attempt to understand more about the methods and tenets of TIE. ‘Partnership’ is a key concept and driving force, creating mutual cooperation between the community of the school, the parents and the theatre groups. The expected outcomes of this thesis include the clarification notions of TIE, and the adoption of a subjective approach by the students in relation to the process of interactivity, leading from affection to cognition, then action. This thesis concludes that TIE is a critical pedagogy and praxis, which develops skills and attitudes in which action can be taken by the individual in fitting in the world. It improves the individual’s ability to rethink his/her beliefs and attitudes, to empathise with groups of people and individuals with whom she/he previously may not have come into social contact with and allows previously taboo subjects to be discussed openly.

Thesis advisor: Theresa A. O'Keefe / In this dissertation, I argue that Bible education is best understood as training students to improvise responsibly with Scripture. I explore this pedagogical model by reflecting on my experience as a Bible instructor at Cristo Rey New York High School, an inner city Catholic school. The goal of a Cristo Rey education is the integral liberation of students. In the language of liberation theology, to be "integrally liberated" is to survive and to thrive on all levels - material, cultural, psychosocial, and spiritual. Learning to improvise responsibly with Scripture helps students to grow in integral liberation. It helps them develop the capacity to perceive and to act with greater freedom, discernment, and commitment. It helps them to handle and interpret the Bible in ways that are creative, critical, and true. Here being true means more than being factually accurate; it means being true to the text, being true to the needs of one's interpreting community, and being true to the inner promptings of God's Holy Spirit. Responsible improvisation connects Biblical interpretation with artistry, with problem-solving, and with the construction of counter-cultural spaces. The dissertation supports a pedagogy for improvising responsibly with Scripture in several different ways. In the first chapter, I explain my proposal and the teaching experiences on which it is based. The first half of the chapter introduces the Cristo Rey setting within which I developed the Biblical pedagogy theorized and refined in this project. The second half begins to locate and unpack that pedagogy in terms of academic disciplines and relevant terms. I explain more concretely what I mean by "training students to improvise responsibly with Scripture." I also describe what I mean by "integral liberation," and by "interpretations that are creative, critical, and true." Chapter Two answers the question: "Why consider teaching a program of training?" I use the theory of Situated Learning to outline the religion classroom as a place of training, where students learn to master different interpretive practices in the midst of intersecting communities. I show how my model accurately reflects the teaching and learning dynamics of high school classrooms. A situated learning perspective helps educators identify specific areas where their interventions can help students become better, more responsible Scriptural improvisers. Chapter Three answers the question, "How can you train students for improvisation?" In this chapter, I correlate my educational model with the popular educational technique known as Theatre of the Oppressed (TO). TO brings together critical pedagogy and creative expression to help participants improvise artful and liberating social actions; it has proven both powerful and enduring in a broad range of class and cultural settings. I use TO as a generative metaphor to help teachers imagine more deeply and richly what training students for responsible improvisation might look like. Chapter Four steps back to take in a broader perspective. It answers the question, "Is this pedagogical model coherent? How does it all hang together?" In this chapter, I use the Pragmatist theology of Donald Gelpi, SJ as an overarching framework. I relate the concepts of "interpretation," "creativity," "responsibility," and "norms" with each other, and with a theology of God's Holy Spirit. Using Gelpi's semiotic realism as a conceptual framework shows how my pedagogy is not only conceptually coherent, but also convincingly rooted in the Christian intellectual tradition. Chapter Five presents a detailed example of teaching the Bible for responsible improvisation. It outlines the process of preparing and teaching a chapter from the Gospel of Matthew - specifically, Mt 13, the "Parables Discourse." This chapter argues that a warrant for improvising responsibly with Scripture can be derived from the Gospel itself. In short, I argue that "training students to improvise responsibly with Scripture" is a justice-grounded, empirically accurate, pedagogically compelling, intellectually coherent, and eminently Christian approach to teaching the Bible in Catholic schools. I conclude by discussing the implications of such a model in the context of Catholic educational ministry and ministerial training. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry.

This multi-year critical ethnographic study examined the development and use of oral languages, and academic, digital, and critical literacies among high school debaters who participated in the Ivy League Debate Institute (ILDI), an intense academic apprenticeship for low-income Black and Brown youth attending public high schools in a large northeastern city. The study documented and analyzed a high school intervention that sought to foster powerful readers, writers, speakers, and engaged citizens through critical debate education that embraces new literacies, critical theory, empirical research, community-based literacies, and Hip-Hop culture. In addition to documenting the language and literacy practices of the majority of students participating in the apprenticeship during an eight week summer workshop, the research also followed a subset of ILDI students over the course of three years as they participated in after school trainings, weekend debate tournaments, public presentations, and researched and practiced at summer debate institutes. Drawing upon African American literacies and rhetoric(s) and sociocultural and critical education theories, this research investigated the role of critical debate in the development of participants’ academic literacies, civic engagement, and identities. A sociocultural lens that views learning as changing participation over time in communities of practice (Lave, 1991) was used to analyze a wide range of data: field notes and researcher memos from after school meetings and events; video recordings of meetings, public presentations and debate tournaments; online correspondence; student generated speeches, academic essays and research notes; and semi-structured interviews with participants elucidating on the role of the debate apprenticeship in the development of academic and critical literacies. The study reveals the role of the critical debate apprenticeship in supporting students to become more dexterous users of multiple literacies, languages, and discourses, and to leverage these resources in academic and civic spaces for self- and social justice advocacy. The study expands what counts as academic discourse and literacy development to create more room for cultivating both literacies of access and social justice. Combining student-led instruction in evidence-based advocacy skills and print-based and new literacies with oral language and Hip-Hop can support participants in employing diverse cultural and linguistic practices and academic, new, and critical literacies to develop well-reasoned and persuasive texts that speak to social injustices, offering new possibilities for literacy education in high schools, first-year college classrooms, preservice teacher training, and in out-of-school spaces.

Recently there has been a call to disrupt the continuous cycle of (re)production from within university-based programs through the development of transformative approaches rooted in the cultural norms of traditionally marginalized populations. This study aimed to explore how one such approach, critical hip-hop pedagogy (CHHP), manifests within the formal university-based teacher education setting. Focusing on one specific course in a prestigious, Northeastern university, this study explores how the course was conceptualized, enacted, experienced and interpreted by both the professor and twelve enrolled teachers in the Spring 2017 semester. Through qualitative case study methodology the purpose of this study was to: (1) document the ways that one CHHP teacher educator carves out space for his work amidst the politically charged teacher education space; (2) document and analyze the pedagogical moves embedded in the praxis of one teacher educator who teaches a university-based course designed to prepare teachers to utilize hip-hop cultural artifacts and aesthetics to critical educational ends; and (3) document and analyze the ways in which enrolled pre-service teachers experience, conceptualize, and interpret these practices. Four key findings are presented: (1) the professor conceptualized and enacted the course as a means of disrupting dominant narratives about acceptable and effective approaches to teaching and learning; (2) his enactments of CHHP embodied hip-hop cultural practices and aesthetics through his (re)conceptualization of teacher as MC; (3) the course’s structure through the aesthetics and rules of engagement of the hip-hop cypher provided a variety of ways for students to actively participate in the processes of knowledge production; (4) enrolled teachers reported new understandings of hip-hop as culture, resulting in shifts in perspectives on key issues impacting education and their visions for themselves as educators. Given these findings, this study suggests that the professor’s construction and enactment of the course resulted in an immersive experience in which he taught through a CHHP framework rather than about it, as is often seen in courses claiming similar critical multicultural and culturally relevant approaches, creating a dynamic immersive cultural experience for the enrolled teachers.

This dissertation is a qualitative case study exploring the understandings, beliefs, and practices of Youth Spoken Word Poetry (YSW) educators who work within the field of Hip Hop-Based Education (HHBE) and have grown from youth participants to adult professionals within an international YSW Network. This study examines how current YSW practitioners describe and understand their work, along with the multiple literacy practices they utilize related to spirituality and race. This study is framed by a sociocultural lens of education, includes a blend of qualitative research methods related to narrative approaches, and is inspired by literature grounded in Hip Hop-Based Education; Race and Education; and Spirituality and Education. It is a hope of this study that the findings lead to a more nuanced understanding of how HHBE functions within the landscape of education and impact how we approach HHBE moving forward. Major findings revealed that the participants describe themselves as racialized and spiritual beings in implicit and explicit ways. YSW participants in this study described the field of YSW as grounded in African American lineages and acknowledged that the field currently functions as pluralistic and multicultural. YSW participants describe spirituality as personal, collective, and transcendent experiences. Though participants defined spirituality differently, they described it as something that is present, naming it as an important factor to be considered when examining YSW practice. Core literacy practices participants engaged with and enacted within the YSW community related to race and spirituality included acknowledging their voice as something that was expressed individually, collectively, and universally and across time (past, present, and future). These findings highlight the value of communities that support: (1) Reflection, or honoring individual identities; (2) Refraction, or honoring Communities of Practice that shape our paths; and (3) Dispersion, or the use of stories to support dreaming, sharing, and revolutionizing the world as we know it.

The Utah State Standards for media arts are general and therefore give teachers a great deal of freedom in how they present the content for media arts courses. How the teacher engages students and project assignments are left to the teacher as they walk the students through the process of making films. This thesis explores how an art teacher might use music videos to teach filmmaking techniques and engage students in the process of meaning making. My research hypothesis is that, by educating students to understand and interpret the messages they consume through media, I can help them recognize the hidden texts in visual culture. My curriculum provides students with learning activities that foster the development of critical thinking skills and also techniques for analyzing images. An important part of the curriculum for this unit is a critical study of music videos wherein the students examine music videos using semiotics and qualitative film analysis. The students explore filmmaking techniques and the processes needed to create their own messages in a music video.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Antioch University, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Apr. 10, 2007). Advisor: Jon F. Wergin. Keywords: transformative learning theory, deliberative curriculum theory, graduate professional education, theory building, higher education. Includes bibliographical references (p. 377-399).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Antioch University New England, 2006. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Apr. 12, 2007). Advisor: Heidi Watts. "A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy [in] Environmental Studies at Antioch New England Graduate School 2006"--The title page. Keywords: environmental advocacy, activist training, social movements, curriculum action research, master's curriculum, environmental studies, popular education, critical pedagogy, education for citizenship. Includes bibliographical references (p. 345-357).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 144-152).

As a culturally relevant alternative to traditional public school environments, Independent African Centered schools feature a particular type of culturally relevant pedagogy. This study explored the teachers’ and administrator’s perceptions and applications of African Centered pedagogy in an African Centered school. Interviews, observations and a document review served as the source of data for this study. This basic interpretive study utilized a qualitative research design to explore the perceptions and application of African Centeredness among the participants. An analysis of the data revealed categories and themes related to the school’s mission and the participants’ perceptions and performance of African-centered pedagogy. Three general conclusions were drawn from the findings. Implications for theory, study limitations and recommendations for future research are provided.