In Singapore, there is an increasing presence of theatre artists as educators across varied sectors of the educational institutions. However despite their active engagement with education, research on what and how they do their teaching is limited. This thesis sets out to investigate the theatre artists’ teaching practices in education settings. The literature reviewed as part of this inquiry point to an identifiable system of pedagogy in the theatre artists’ teaching practices. As such, one of the key strands of this research is to identify and name what is distinctive about theatre artists’ teaching practices. But more than just identifying characteristics, I am interested in understanding if there is an overarching philosophy that guides these practices. To that end, I conceptualised a framework, which examines the theatre artists’ teaching practices as inhabiting a nested nexus of two distinguishably separate fields: Theatre and Education. Each with its own variegated influences and systems of knowledge and values that govern practices. Working with an overarching Bourdieusean theoretical framework, in particular habitus and field, as well as invoking Lyotard’s notion of differend, the study relies on interdisciplinary theories to aid explication of key concepts related to the study. The study also employs a melding of ethnographic case study and reflective practitioner as its methodology. Additionally, it works with “critiquing across difference” (Lather 2008) as a means to challenge and destabilise the reflective practitioner lens. This is achieved by structuring the research into two phases. Phase I involves researching in England. Working with four theatre artists, I examine how each assumes their position as educators in various education settings both within and beyond the school environment. The opportunity gained from this experience informed Phase II research in Singapore, the main focus of this inquiry. The findings suggest that to understand theatre artists’ teaching practices require an examination of contexts influencing their teaching acts. This includes their layered histories of both artistic and teaching experiences as well as the relationship they have with the school culture and the objectives and needs of their teaching projects. Additionally, in examining their teaching moments, the study discovers a pattern of doing the same approaches or strategies, differently. Working from the data, an overarching world view guiding the construction of their teaching practices is eventually proposed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:582438 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Mohamed, Noorlinah |
| Publisher | University of Warwick |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/57690/ |
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