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Topic

Weaving Currere: Possibilities, Provocations, and Performative Inquiry in Drama Education

Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Date & location

• Tuesday, March 24, 2026

• 9:00 A.M.

• Clearihue Building

• Room B007 and Virtual

Reviewers

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Graham McDonough, Department of Curriculum & Instruction, ̽��ϵ�� (Supervisor)

• Dr. Carole Miller, Department of Curriculum & Instruction, UVic (Member)

• Dr. Sasha Kovacs, Department of Theatre, UVic (Outside Member) 

External Examiner

• Dr. Sara Schroeter, Faculty of Education, University of Regina 

Chair of Oral Examination

• Prof. Martin Segger, Department of Art History and Visual Studies, UVic

   

Abstract

The aesthetic space of the drama classroom can be a locus of hope, transformative action, and “complicated conversation” (Pinar, 2019) where students may explore identities, roles, and responses to social challenges through drama pedagogy grounded in critical inquiry. This dissertation presents a compilation study of eight papers exploring varied aspects of drama education. Framed by three interwoven “red threads” (Fox & Dauber, 1999), I locate my scholarly practice within a/r/tography (Carter, 2013; Carter et al., 2011; Irwin & de Cosson, 2004) and situate my work as an example of Pinar’s (1975) method of currere within the field of curriculum studies. I argue that when presented together in concert, these papers offer a curriculum of hope.

The red thread of Possibilities comprises of papers which are concerned with new and hopeful futures for drama education. These papers critically reflect upon the development of a new curriculum guide in performance studies, and present a small-scale interview study discussing how a group of experienced drama teachers responded to this newly developed curriculum. In the red thread of Provocations, I analyse various practices in drama education, and describe some of the pitfalls, considerations, and wonderings. I argue that drama education may pedagogically trouble didactic moral instruction and offer space for the exploration of morally ambiguous dilemmas. I position drama and theatre for young people as rich pedagogy in which to explore philosophical problems with young people, and also discuss the importance of deepening awareness of potential harms that may arise even from well-intentioned practices. The final thread of Performative Inquiry engages the arts-based research methodologies of poetic inquiry and ethnodrama. Here I offer a collection of found poems crafted from interview data, an autoethnographic play text, and an ethnodrama concerning young people’s responses to representations of mental health topics in Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) plays.