Preliminary Study Design

The preliminary study was conducted on November 15, 2007, with 19 students of mixed ages and races in a Drama 2 class in a low-income urban high school outside of Boston, MA. This group was selected because they were very tight-knit and demonstrated a high degree of trust in each other and their teacher, which resulted in risk-taking in scene work.

I initially planned to observe a drama class that focused on issues of power and to conduct follow-up interviews with one or two students in order to further explore their ideas as depicted in the performance/theatre work. I co-planned the lesson with Amy, the classroom teacher. It was structured loosely around the work of Augusto Boal, incorporating several different types of performance opportunities within the same lesson- exercises, tableaux, and scene work. The final scene work was based on personal stories of power situations from their lives, and allowed me to glimpse areas that might provide rich interview data. Amy taught the lesson, and I observed and took notes, sitting on the stage very close to the students in order to hear, and moving among them as they planned, maintaining as much discretion as possible.

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? How do urban students of color understand the effect of power dynamics on their lives? What meanings do these words hold for them?

How do students define power?

Where do students see power demonstrated in their daily lives?

How do power dynamics affect them in school, at home, at work, in the world?

Student constructions of what constitutes power helps inform my

understanding of how they define it—an active definition.

Student constructions of their own positions of power/powerlessness in various life situations informs my understanding of their awareness of individual and socialized power dynamics.

Student self-report, story, clarifications of their scene work in Boal drama class

Transcripts of semi- structured interviews. Field notes of class observation

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

Information-rich case studies of individual students, possibly some patterns of similarity and difference between participants

Are they articulating the same level of knowledge verbally as they do in performance? Can students talk about

the same dynamics that are embedded in their depictions/performances in theatre? Are they consciously aware of everything they’re showing in scene work?

Observation of the world and inferential, unconscious reflections of those

observations are present in the students’ performance work. Which are conscious and intentional, which are not? Do they intellectually understand everything they’re reflecting? As a starting point for expanding their awareness of power dynamics, I need to know what they already understand.

Contrast between their performance “stories” and their spoken stories. Their relative sophistication in discussing the power dynamics they perceive in their own lives, in

comparison with their multi- layered performances.

Transcripts of semi- structured interviews. Field notes of class observation Identification of power dynamics elements in scene work Identification of power dynamics elements in interviews Inductive analysis: Identification of key themes and patterns as well as contrasts and paradoxes a) Identification of power representations in performance b) Identification of student awareness of power as a life element c) Interpretation of students understandings as presented through performance and interview 96

How do students view the connection between community and power? Are students aware of the

power that they demonstrate as a community?

Can they name the value that community holds for them in this class?

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 not, why does it look the way it does? 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, explanation of observed classroom dynamics in interview, identification of community in other areas of their lives.

Transcripts of semi- structured interviews. Field notes of class observations.

Identification of community and power elements in interviews Identification of community and power elements in

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

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

b) Identification of student awareness of community and power as a life element c) Interpretations of students’ understandings as presented through performance and in interview.

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.}