Phase One Design

Phase One of my research utilized process drama as an approach to teaching U.S. labor history and collective action, past and present. The key questions guiding this phase of the research were:

• What are the effects of process drama on facilitating students’ understandings of unequal power dynamics, as reflected in cultural hegemony and unequal distribution of resources in their lives?

• What are the effects of integrating social and labor history with contemporary themes in creating a context for understanding current unequal power

dynamics?

• In what ways can teaching labor history from the past affect students’ constructions of collective action in the present?

• In what ways does the community established in the drama classroom affect students’ engagement and facility with the material?

Table 3.2 (see p.104-107) identifies the research questions, conceptual goals, data collection and analysis strategies, and potential evidence which framed this phase of my research.

Phase One was conducted from October 16- November 8, 2008 with a Drama 1 class of 24 students of mixed ages and ethnicities. The degree of theatre knowledge and experience among the students varied substantially, as did their range of academic capabilities and their facility with English. I observed the students for three class periods before introducing them to the project. During this period, I was introduced to them, learned their names, and watched a series of classes which included games, tableaux, and scenes about power. The subject of these scenes indicated some of their thinking/conceptualizing about power. I also observed their facility with drama forms, their social dynamics, their relationship to the teacher, Amy, and their commitment to the class. I selected F Block for the project because they

demonstrated a strong sense of community, a positive relationship with Amy, and a range of drama/theatre knowledge and capability. I designed a series of process dramas that Amy taught over 12 class periods. As stated above, I was a participant observer during the drama work--I led some warm-ups and games on the first day and occasionally took on role or facilitated scene development in subsequent classes. I took notes throughout the lessons, as did Bevin.

I also observed and worked with D Block, a class of 25 students of mixed ages and ethnicities. The D Block class had more underclasspersons than F Block, and the leadership was socially-based, rather than competence-based. I led the process drama classes with D Block, and Amy observed and facilitated, occasionally taking role and helping students with scene development. My modeling of the process drama

What do I need to

know? Why do I need to know this? What kind of data will answer the questions? Where can I find the data? How will I analyze the data? evidence will this _produce? What are the effects of process drama on facilitating students’ understandings of unequal power dynamics, as reflected in cultural hegemony and unequal distribution of resources in their lives?

What do students currently understand about personal and social power?

How much do students understand about cultural hegemony and unequal distribution of wealth as factors in power distribution and ownership?

In what ways does process drama allow students to develop their understandings of these dynamics in action?

Student constructions of what constitutes power helps inform my understanding of how much they understand about the parallels between micro (personal) and macro (societal) power

situations/structures. Student constructions of the place of money and cultural capital indicates for me their understanding of societal tools for maintaining the control and distribution of power. The first step toward possible change is in understanding the dynamics in play. If process drama can be used for this purpose, to motivate and facilitate understanding, it is a boon for students and for the field.

Student self-report, performance, story

development in the dramas, argument/advocacy within the dramas

Pre-project survey results Post-project survey results

Field notes of class observation

Ethnographer notes of class observations

Inductive analysis: Identification of key themes and patterns as well as contrasts and paradoxes

Information-rich case studies of individual students and of group dynamics, patterns of similarity and difference between participants, some indicators of change over time 104

What are the effects of integrating social and labor history with contemporary themes in creating a context for understanding current unequal power dynamics? To what extent can

students draw parallels between social/labor history and current day dynamics, as pertains to unequal power

distribution? To what extent do students identify the role of immigrants (and cultural hegemony) as central to these dynamics?

The unequal power dynamics of today have existed before, and non-dominant peoples have made substantial changes through collective action. If the students can draw these parallels, they may be able to imagine themselves in the role as change agents.

Can they see themselves and their families in the stories of labor history?

Students’ reflection of their own lived power and cultural dynamics in scenes they create about the past Reflections of the past in scenes they create about their own lives

Students’ ability to identify and discuss the parallels Students’ application of ideas/problems/solutions between past and present

Pre-project survey results Post-project survey results

Field notes of class observation

Ethnographer notes of class observations

Identification of power and cultural dynamics’ parallels in scene work Identification of power and cultural dynamics’ parallels in survey results

Inductive analysis: Identification of key themes and patterns as well as contrasts and paradoxes

a) Identification of student awareness of parallels between social/labor history dynamics and present day dynamics re: unequal power b) Identification of student awareness of culture and immigrant status as a factor in unequal power dynamics c) Interpretation of students’ understandings as presented through performance and in surveys 105

In what ways can teaching the past affect students’ constructions of collective action in the present? To what extent can they

see the possibilities for collective action as a tool for positive change today?

Collective action is a viable tool for fostering social change, possibly the only one readily available to them. If they’re willing to consider the possibility that they could use it, it might be possible to use process drama and

playmaking to teach them

how to use it.

Student self-report, body language, performances in process dramas about collective action, arguments for and against collective action within the dramas, post-drama

processing/discussion.

Pre-project survey results Post-project survey results

Field notes of class observations. Ethnographer notes of class observations Identification of collective action elements in observations, surveys Inductive analysis: Identification of key themes and patterns as well as contrasts and paradoxes a) Interpretations of students’ understandings as presented through performance and in surveys. 106

In what ways does the community established in the drama classroom affect students’ engagement and facility with the material? Are students aware of

the power that they demonstrate as a community?

Can they identify ways that their community- based power could be used to make change in unequal power

dynamics?

Literature on Sense of

Community and its connection to power is clear. Do they experience it the way that it’s described in the literature? If so, their

descriptions/discussion can add to an understanding of urban students of color in relationship to community and power.

Student self-report, body language, performances in process dramas, engagement in class time, positive peer interactions, use of optional “sick days”, post-drama processing/discussion.

Pre-project survey results Post-project survey results

Field notes of class observations.

Ethnographer notes of class observations

Identification of community and power elements in surveys Identification of community and power elements in

observations

a) Identifications of community and power representations in performance and body language.

b) Identification of student awareness of community and power as an element in labor history and in the present

SOURCE: Adapted by David Eddy Spicer from Ethnography and Qualitative Design in Educational Research (2nd _{ed.) by M. D. LeCompte and J. Preissle, 1993, San Diego:}

Academic Press as cited in Qualitative Research Design (2nd _{ed.) by J. Maxwell, 2005, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, p. 100-101.}

leadership with the F Block class, and meet her stated goal of achieving competence leading process drama work. I coded all of the data for both classes, but ultimately decided to work just with the F Block data for the following reasons:

1. As in the preliminary study, I was interested in removing myself from the equation as much as possible in determining the outcomes of the work. I planned and modeled the lessons, but my serving as primary teacher seemed to change the focus of inquiry too much, from “What are the effects of process drama…?” to “What are the effects of my teaching process drama…?” I’m a teaching artist with 20 years of experience using this form of applied drama. I was more interested in considering the effects of the form and content in less experienced hands.

2. As a teacher, I foster discussion; that is my skill and interest. Amy is much less discussion-oriented; she likes action. Consequently, I often asked twice as many questions as she did in processing the work we’d just done. I felt that, if students reflected the understandings of cultural hegemony and unequal distribution of resources in their lives in the brief discussions fostered by Amy, that was a stronger indication of their learning than in my longer, multi- question discussions.

3. As lead teacher, my field notes for D Block were much less complete than those for F Block, in which I was constantly observing and recording. Bevin provided ethnography for 8 of the 12 D Block sessions, and I dedicated time after each class period to record my memory of events. Consequently the quotes, questions, and details on scene development are less complete in the D Block data.

3.7.1 Survey

In Phase One: Process Drama, observation and data collection during the drama interventions were preceded and followed by the application of a survey instrument, and a final discussion/reflection conducted with the group.

I designed the survey/questionnaire as an “informal survey” (Casley and Kumar,1987; Casley and Lury, 1982) which was conducted before the start of the process drama work. According to Marsland, Wilson, Abeyasekera, and Kleih (n.d.),

in some cases, researchers and practitioners may conduct a questionnaire survey before a more in-depth informal study. In such cases the questionnaire survey acts as a kind of baseline, the results indicating areas requiring further probing and analysis through informal methods. This type of sequencing will work best in situations where most of the key issues are known or strongly suspected (p.18).

“In studies that have resources to pursue other data collection strategies,

questionnaires can be a useful confirmation tools” (Social Research Methods, 2009). In this case, the survey was intended to serve in part as a diagnostic of the

participants’ baseline ideas about power, its mutability, and their relationship to it which would inform the design of the process drama lessons, and in part as data to inform my emerging hypothesis on the role of community and power for urban students of color. (for full text of the survey instrument, see Appendix D, p. 349) The construction of the instrument followed guidelines for survey and questionnaire design, including beginning with “well-defined objectives,” and questions designed with a focus on clarity and neutral phrasing, and on avoiding leading questions, embarrassing questions, hypothetical questions and questions with overt prestige bias (Social Research Methods, 2009). According to Bradburn, Sudman, and Wansink (2004) “no codified rules for question asking exist” (p.4), though, given the “social context” of question asking, “questions must be precisely worded if responses to a survey are to be accurate” (ibid, p.xi). They advocate that one should “ask what you

want to know” (ibid, p.3) and be aware of “the ambiguities of language” (ibid, p.3). They also suggest “pre-testing to weed out ambiguities or miscommunications” (ibid, p.4). Though I was unable to access a group of urban students for pre-testing, I vetted the structure and questions of the survey with a professor of mixed research

methodologies and several professional colleagues who have conducted their own research, and the language of the questions for vocabulary, reading level, and word choice with the classroom teacher.

The instrument offered a range of five possible answers per question,

including strongly agree, agree, could go either way, disagree, and strongly disagree. Conventional wisdom says that there should be an odd number of alternatives. This allows a neutral or no opinion response. Other schools of thought contend that an even number of choices is best because it forces the respondent to get off the fence (Social Research Methods, 2009).

I conducted the instrument again as a post-test to see whether there was a significant change in student responses as a result of the project. I also added an open format question: Name anything new you understand about power after this project.

Open format questions are those that ask for unprompted opinions… and the participant is free to answer however he chooses. Open format questions are good for soliciting subjective data …An obvious advantage is that the variety of responses should be wider and more truly reflect the opinions of the respondents (Social Research Methods, 2009).

3.7.2 Coding Categories

I identified codes relative to the research questions guiding Phase One and suggested by the data. Data collected, coded, and analyzed include my daily field notes and post-class reflections, the daily field notes and reflections/comments of the ethnographer, notes on conversations/discussions with the classroom teacher, and the students’ post-project discussion and open response prompts from the survey. Open codes are identified in bold font and are followed by axial codes which are related to them. The coding categories include:

Baseline ideas about power

Thoughts and feelings about power Taking power in action

Awareness of immigrant factor and poverty in cultural hegemony Past

Present

Parallels between past and present Understanding of collective power

Belief in possible efficacy of collective action Community in the drama class

Statements Actions

Power in the drama class Statements

Actions

Community and Power Social interaction Academic performance Anti-Community

Statements Actions

Fairness of the current free market employment system 3.7.3 Lessons Learned, pt. 2

Ultimately the survey tool was the least helpful component of data generated during Phase One, as I discuss in Chapter 5, the data analysis of this component of the

study. The only exception was the open format prompt at the end of the post-project survey. The final discussion, conducted after the surveys were completed, yielded richer, more detailed, and, I feel, more reliable information on students’ reactions to the process drama work and what they felt they had learned. Consequently, I decided to return to interviewing as a vehicle for eliciting post-project data in Phase Two.

I had originally intended to conduct Phase Two of the project in the fall of 2009. However, due to the financial crisis which occurred in October, 2008, the stability of the drama program at Chelsea High School was in question. Rather than risk losing access to the site, I moved the last phase of the project up and conducted it in the spring semester of 2009.