More than princess girls and “grrr” heterosexual dudes: An exploration of space, text, performativity, gender and becoming in senior secondary drama classrooms

Late adolescence is a critical time in the formation of a young person’s sense of self with studies pointing to the senior secondary drama classroom as a generative space for this to occur. What is not yet clear is the importance of context, and particularly the powerful forces of neoliberal times, in shaping and potentially delimiting young people’s explorations of gender and life trajectories. More specifically, through the texts students study and the characters they embody, personality and desires are moulded by capital in ways hidden from individual control. Drawing on 15 drama teachers and 13 of their post compulsory students from government, Catholic and independent schools in Western Australia from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds, this dissertation examines the formation of identity/ies in the context of students’ embodiment of characters from proscribed texts in the senior secondary drama classroom and asks: how does the embodiment of characters in texts in year 12 drama empower and constrain adolescent becomings in contemporary times? Year 12 is the final year of schooling for students in Australia. Framed through a critical, post-humanist ethnographic methodology, the theories of Butler, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari are utilised to examine how these forces and “becoming,” as a process of change and resistance, interact to create something new. Second, embodiment is considered through a neoliberal culture of competitive performativity, with gender considered third. Fourth, drama education and creativity are highlighted and linked in generative ways, with consideration then given to the ways that the contemporary zeitgeist impacts on drama education itself in uncertain times. The study contributes to our understanding of neoliberal education systems, whilst focusing specifically on adolescent becomings in drama. The research revealed evidence of a culture of performativity in Western Australian drama education. This is manifest in fewer subject choices offered in schools that limit drama’s availability, “data-driven” curriculum implementation, mechanisms of surveillance of teachers, and deleterious effects on students and teachers in schools from the lowest socio-economic backgrounds. Nevertheless, despite a pervasive culture of performative neoliberalism, teachers and students find creative lines of flight from normative educational structures and gender binaries in the safe and open space of the drama classroom

Being the adult you needed as a kid: Why the AITSL standards are not the best fit for drama teachers

© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. The Australian Professional Standards for teachers attempts to regulate the profession and improve teacher quality. Yet the standardisation of teachers’ work has attracted criticism from researchers who assert that a “one size fits all” model for judging teacher quality fails to recognise the affective, enactive and relational aspects of teaching. Given the interactive and interpersonal nature of teaching drama, this concern has salience. Our research into the experiences of early-career drama teachers reveals the positive influence these teachers have on their students and in their schools. Of particular note, are the strong role models they have become through the development of authentic, professional relationships where students feel supported and empowered to explore their feelings, achieve academically and flourish as human beings. These relationships are co-constructed during extra-curricular activities, namely in production rehearsals, where together they work towards common goals. Our findings suggest a case can be made for re-evaluating the process of judging teachers against a standardised set of criteria that neglects to capture the nuances of drama education and the passion, commitment and relationality of early-career drama teachers

Performing ‘teacher’: Exploring early career teachers’ becomings, work identities and the [mis-]use of the professional standards in competitive educational assemblages

This paper explores the relationship between early career teachers’ (ECTs) work identities, neoliberal education assemblages, and mandated professional standards. The task of supporting and retaining beginning teachers has received considerable attention in recent years in the face of alarming rates of teacher attrition internationally. The study, undertaken in Western Australia, explores how ECTs construct identities in response to competitive educational discourses, high levels of individual stress, insecure employment, excessive work-loads and limited formal support. The Australian Professional Standards are an example of ‘organisational learning’ that aims to support ECTs. However, our research suggests that in practice a managerial ‘tick the box’ approach to addressing the Standards renders them ineffective. We consider how embodied teacher identities are moulded in neoliberal secondary schools through concepts of performativity. This paper concludes that the performing arts can offer creative, collaborative and impassioned approaches to encouraging authentic teacher identities to support and retain ECTs

Fish out of water: Investigating the ‘readiness’ and proficiency of beginning drama teachers in Western Australian secondary schools

The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (AITSL, 2011) stipulate that graduating teachers need to be classroom-ready and able to perform at a ‘graduate standard’. However, recent research indicates that nearly 50% of beginning teachers lack readiness, are overwhelmed with stress, and will leave the profession within five years. This paper seeks to elucidate this disconcerting reality by providing a nuanced focus on the experiences of beginning drama teachers. Findings indicate that while participants in this study began feeling confident and ready for teaching drama; they were largely unprepared for the unwritten requirements of the profession – namely, coping with systems, policies and bureaucracy - and extensive extracurricular responsibilities. This article posits several strategies for enabling beginning drama teachers to successfully ‘manage’ their induction into the profession, and ultimately achieve teacher identity salience

Desiring machines and nomad spaces: Neoliberalism, performativity and becoming in senior secondary drama classrooms

This paper explores Deleuze and Guattari\u27s schizoanalysis in relation to student and teacher becomings and the way these are actualised within the neoliberal and heterosexually striated spaces of the secondary school assemblage. Deleuze and Guattari considered a narrow approach to education problematic and called for creativity as a site of ‘resistance’. Drama is one subject rich with potentiality for students to strengthen their creativity and ‘speak back’ against the neoliberal project. What our research revealed is how the drama classroom is an open, dynamic space where students can embody different identities at a critical time in their adolescent development. What is delimiting about this potentiality is the proclivity of teachers and students, as desiring machines, to conform to the dominant neoliberal culture of competitive performativity. The paper proposes that schizoanalysis offers new insights for mapping complex desire-flows and embodied identities through and against the dominant performative and heterosexist culture

Embodiment and becoming in secondary drama classrooms: The effects of neoliberal education cultures on performances of text and self

This article explores the effects of neoliberalism and performative educational cultures on secondary school drama classrooms. We consider the ways Deleuze and Guattari’s schizoanalysis and Butler’s concept of gender performance enable us to chart the embodied, relational, spatial and affective energies that inhabit the often neoliberal and heterosexually striated space of the drama classroom. These post-humanist analyses are useful methodological tools for mapping the complexities of student becomings in the space context of the secondary school. We also show how Foucault’s governmentality and Ball’s theory of competitive performativity are particularly salient in the context of immanent capitalism that shapes the desires of its subjects. These frameworks, when combined, can be useful in critiquing neoliberal educational assemblages and in indicating emerging deterritorializations and lines of flight in teachers and students

Performativity and creativity in senior secondary drama classrooms

This article examines the intersection between the senior secondary drama classroom, creativity and neoliberalism. Informed by a research project involving fifteen West Australian drama teachers and thirteen students, it considers the drama classroom as one site where tensions between the performative needs of neoliberal education and the more humanistic desires that drama teachers embody are enacted. This paper suggests that drama education can be a powerfully transformative vehicle for creative and innovative thinking because of its spatially unique classroom environment and embodied nature. However, collisions between rhetoric and reality, social good and economic return, can mean that young people are denied opportunities for choice and the capability development that drama education brings

More than “sluts” or “prissy girls”: Gender and becoming in senior secondary drama classrooms

This article examines the relationships between the embodiment of dramatic characters, gender, and identity. It draws on ethnographic data based on observations and interviews with 24 drama teachers and senior secondary drama students in Western Australia. We explore how student becomings in year 12 drama classrooms are mediated and constituted through socially overcoded gender binaries in a dominant neoliberal culture of competitive performativity. We ask the questions: What constructions of femininity and masculinity are students embodying from popular dramatic texts in the drama classroom at a critical time in their social and emotional development? Are these constructions empowering? Or disempowering? What factors are influencing teachers’ choices of texts for their predominantly female students? Our research shows that what is delimiting about this potentiality in a time of identity exploration and formation are the constraining gender-binary roles available to young women particularly, and the performative pressures teachers are experiencing

Comparison of Three-Dimensional Motion of the Scapula during the Hawkins-Kennedy Test and the Sidelying Sleeper Stretch

Comparison of Three-Dimensional Motion of the Scapula during the Hawkins-Kennedy Test and the Sleeper Stretch. Alyssa S. Buchner, Tami J. Buus, Brittany N. Evans, Kirsten E. Lambert, Lisandra M. Scheevel Advisor: Cort J. Cieminski, PT, PhD, ATR PURPOSE: The Hawkins-Kennedy test is a pain provocation test used to identify shoulder pathology. With this test, it is hypothesized the scapula tips anteriorly and compresses soft tissue structures of the shoulder, causing pain. A common intervention for this type of shoulder pathology is the sidelying sleeper stretch. Although the glenohumeral (GH) joint is in the same anatomical position for both conditions, the sleeper stretch does not typically provoke pain. In the sidelying position the scapula was stabilized by the subject’s body weight, theoretically limiting the amount of anterior tipping. Currently, there is no research investigating the scapular arthrokinematics in both conditions. The purpose of this study is to measure scapular tipping accompanying shoulder internal rotation (IR) range of motion (ROM) in the sidelying sleeper stretch position compared to the Hawkins-Kennedy test position. METHODS: While passive moving from full shoulder external to internal rotation, scapular tipping and GH IR were measured in the Hawkins-Kennedy and sidelying sleeper stretch using three-dimensional motion analysis, on the dominant shoulder of 30 healthy subjects (13 male [31.3±13.0 years, 24.6±2.7 BMI] and 17 female [27.4±8.7 years, 23.2±2.3 BMI]). RESULTS: Hawkins-Kennedy GH IR mean was 94.1°±13.2° and sidelying GH IR mean was 71.9°±15.9° (

Radon, From the Ground into Our Schools: Parent/Guardian Awareness of Radon Levels in Vermont Schools

Introduction. Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers. Ex- posure to radon in schools may be harmful to schoolchildren, faculty, and staff, but there is currently no legislation mandating testing or mitigation of radon levels in Vermont schools. Objectives. The goal of our study was to assess Vermont parents’ awareness of radon’s harmful effects, as well as awareness of and support for testing and mitigation of radon levels in their children’s schools. Methods. We distributed paper and online surveys to Vermont parents of children grades K-12. 126 surveys were received and quantitatively analyzed. We held a focus group of two Vermont parents to gather qualitative data. Results. Most surveyed parents demonstrated general knowledge of radon, but only 51% believed that radon affects the lungs. 8% were confident that their children’s schools had informed them about radon levels. 91.2% believe their children’s schools should take action to address elevated radon levels and 87% would support mandated mitigation. There is some concern and lack of knowledge about the financial implications of radon mitigation. Conclusions. Most Vermont parents of children grades K-12 are unaware that radon is a lung carcinogen and do not know their children’s school’s radon levels or mitigation status. However, most are in favor of legislation that would require testing and dis- closure of schools’ high radon levels. Educating parents about school radon levels and their association with lung cancer could be a foundation for community support of legislation that mandates testing and mitigation of radon in Vermont schools.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/comphp_gallery/1252/thumbnail.jp