Forum Theatre Examined through the Pedagogy of Cooperation in Education

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Other Title
  • 協同教育から見たフォーラムシアター
  • キョウドウ キョウイク カラ ミタ フォーラムシアター

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Description

The study is to illustrate theoretical/practical applications of Forum Theatre (FT), a participatory theatre technique originally designed by a Brazilian theatre activist Augusto Boal, to analyze educational effects derived from FT, and to examine FT from perspectives based on the pedagogy of cooperation in education. FT first depicts an oppressive theatrical scene in which a protagonist is oppressed by an antagonist. The audiences as passive spectators are then encouraged to join an ongoing theatrical scene, to replace the protagonist role, and to do an improvisational performance in order to challenge the oppressor's (ie., the antagonist's) language, hegemony, and social injustice presented in the scene. FT aims to empower members of the oppressed group by providing them with the opportunity to develop critical consciousness through engacenient in reflection of internalized oppression that relates to an external oppressive situation, encouraging them to change both internal and external subordinate status through a theatrical rehearsal, thereby promoting liberatory change in their real-life situations. This paper is the result of a collaborative effort of two researchers in different fields. The first author, who employs participatory theatre activities in a pre-service teacher education context, emphasizes that pre-service teachers' performing FT plays provides them with a vicarious experience of the events portrayed in the plays, which helps them view things from the perspectives of the marginalized. The second author, who has developed the theoretical/practical foundations of cooperative learning in a Japanese educational context, finds that FT can be an effective apparatus that may help audiences/participants nurture empathetic understanding and strengthen conflict resolution skills. The two researchers hope many more scholars in different research fields at Soka University will conduct collaborative research activities similar to the attempt shown in this paper.

Journal

  • 教育学論集

    教育学論集 (65), 111-124, 2014-02-16

    創価大学教育学部・教職大学院

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