For the last several years, teacher-researchers Jessica Jasper, Laura Dvorak, Steven Athanases, and Sergio Sanchez have partnered with a program called Globe Education, Shakespeare's Globe London. Practitioners in the program use teaching practices that engage learners with Shakespeare's works and other complex texts through drama practices. Jess…

This study draws on the experiences of eleven individuals working for six organisations in Northern California to identify ways White supremacist ideals operate in performance-related programmes in correctional facilities. The inquiry examines the experience of teaching artist/facilitators (TAFs) of colour; White TAF's (in)ability to reflect on…

Promoting equitable access to the arts may depend on structures that support teachers in integrating arts into core curricula. We describe an arts-integration design that spotlights attention within and beyond one teacher credential program to one arts field--drama--engaging 24 new non-arts teachers across grades and subjects who participated in a…

This article explores the parallels between improvisational theater, commonly known as improv, and active teaching. Specifically, it focuses in the impact of improv techniques on instructor and teaching assistant professional development. The implementation of an active teaching seminar is analyzed, where improv techniques were used in developing…

Purpose: The purpose of this transcendental, phenomenological study was to explore how involvement in theatre arts programs helps to improve social functioning skills (SFS) in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder, from a drama teacher's perspective, in middle schools in the central coast region of California. Methodology: A qualitative…

Within a partnership between a California university and Globe Education (Shakespeare's Globe, London), this study features early-career teachers working to infuse Shakespeare and drama in diverse K-12 classes. Teachers needed links between a five-day immersive London course and new jobs in diverse California schools. A three-day university…

All disciplines have particular ways of knowing, common practices, and means of using language that mediate and potentially support engagement with the discipline. For multilingual learners, language demands of a discipline can be a closed door or a facilitated entryway. Drama and theater arts, the focus of our article, are often marginalized in…

In an interview titled "The Janus-Face of Politicized Art," Jacques Ranciere describes his methodology as follows: "I always try to think in terms of horizontal distributions, combinations between systems of possibilities, not in terms of surface and substratum. Where one searches for the hidden beneath the apparent, a position of…

"Some are born great; some achieve greatness; and some have greatness thrust upon them." "Twelfth Night," Act 3 Scene 4. This article examines the differences and similarities between two faculty members as they discuss their entry into the academy after successfully teaching in secondary schools. Both brought with them the…

Part enthnograpy and part testimony, this book analyzes a school setting and community from the standpoint of a group of immigrant mothers (las madres) in South Central Los Angeles who were concerned about the education of their children and the violence in their communities. Written in both the first and third person, in Spanish and English, the…

The study presented in this report evaluates the effects of a school-based theatrical performance "Walk In Our Shoes" on a group of predominantly Latino youth in Santa Barbara County, California. The performance follows the lives of four (fictional) high school students and introduces their various experiences with both mental health…

In recent decades the United States has experienced a dramatic increase in children entering school whose home language is not English. If they are to achieve to their full potential, these children need direct and frequent interaction with individuals who can provide English language learners with accurate feedback. Creative drama activities that…

This study was presented at the American Educational Research Association 2012 conference in Vancouver, Canada. The study explored how action research of arts-based teaching (ABT) impacted at-risk students in three urban public schools in southern California, USA. ABT was defined as using arts, music, drama, and dance in teaching other subjects. A…

Each of the world's major cities is known in the movie world as the exemplar of a specific mood, atmosphere, or spirit and the natural setting for particular kinds of movie stories. Paris, London, New York, and Chicago have their respective types of picture. Los Angeles has such an urban personality in imagination. Those distinctive story lines…

TheatreWorks is the third largest theatre in the San Francisco bay area. Through the usual educational programs that $6 million companies tend to offer, it has reached over 100,000 students of all ages in the past 8 years. The TheatreWorks Bridges Projects, however, are special. They are intricate and expansive, work with multiple community…