The infrastructure for arts and cultural support in the United States is complex and adaptive. Citizens who enjoy the arts can choose from a wide array of drama, visual and media arts, dance, music, and literature available in formal and informal settings--theaters, museums, and concert halls, but also libraries, schools, places of worship,…

With the economic collapse of 2008, there has been a dramatic increase in government emphasis on the value of science and technology-based study in the nation's high schools as a means for the United States to remain competitive in the world economic market. Financial, political and societal support for the hard sciences, coupled with…

Every year the author and his colleagues take their grade 12 English students to see four plays at one of Canada's major theaters. Chatting about the series on the last day of class, his students asked him if he had seen "the blue glow from the back row." Laughing at his bewilderment, they told him that during the performances so many students…

This article highlights the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts in Richmond, California, which is one successful model of a community-based arts education organization whose central mission is to provide these deep art-rich experiences for students from low socio-economic status (SES) communities, who in this instance are predominately African…

Within the last twenty years there have been a growing number of prospective students interested in pursuing musical theater (MT) training in colleges and universities throughout the United States. To meet this demand, the number of schools offering baccalaureate MT degrees has also grown. However, information on how to assess the music and…

Culturally enriching field trips matter. They produce significant benefits for students on a variety of educational outcomes that schools and communities care about. This experiment on the effects of field trips to see live theater demonstrates that seeing plays is an effective way to teach academic content; increases student tolerance by…

In this article, we consider the aesthetic, political and pedagogical strengths of a verbatim theatre performance, "The Middle Place" by Project: Humanity, a play that explores the experiences of shelter youth in Toronto, Canada. This ethnographic study moved from drama classrooms into theatres and charted audience responses to the production, its…

In 2005-2009, the author researched the theatre-making practices of young people in selected black townships near Cape Town, South Africa. Township theatre groups comprised secondary school learners and out-of-school youth who join together to learn about and make theatre, perform and watch each other. These theatre practitioners do not describe…

This article is based upon research into a participatory Theatre in Education (TiE) programme that toured the West Midlands in 2009, funded by the UK's PREVENT initiative intended to counter the radicalisation of young British nationals by extremist political groups. The article provides a summary of the TiE programme and then presents…

Objective: To compare knowledge gains and knowledge retention of healthful eating and active living behaviors in elementary school children participating in Educational Theatre Programs (ETP). Methods: The study sample included 47 schools (2,915 third- or fourth-grade students) in 8 Kaiser Permanente regions. Children's knowledge of 4 healthful…

The purpose of this study was to find out if 3D stereoscopic presentation of information in a movie format changes a viewer's experience of the movie content. Four possible pathways from 3D presentation to memory and learning were considered: a direct connection based on cognitive neuroscience research; a connection through "immersion" in that 3D…

"Why do I need to know this if I don't want to be a scientist?" is a question middle school teachers probably hear on a regular basis. In an effort to answer it, the authors have tried to appeal to students' varied interests, and thus developed myriad ways to show students how science is a part of their everyday lives. What is described in this…

Julie Salverson, a Canadian scholar-practitioner, has long challenged the assumption that personal storytelling within Community-Based Theatre is necessarily therapeutic. Salverson critiques an "aesthetic of injury," arguing that theatre practitioners have foregrounded personal narratives in a way that reinscribes a "victim discourse" and a sense…

During a teaching methods field experience, we initiated several processes to facilitate pre-service teachers' reflection, empowerment, and performance as they learned to teach students. Through an ethno-theater presentation and subsequent revisions to an ethno-theater script, we turned the reflective lens on ourselves as we discovered instances…

When VCRs became affordable, the film industry worried that people would stop going to the movies. Theaters have not gone away, but they have changed, with many now focused on delivering spectacles that can be seen only in a grand setting, with a big screen and booming sound. Traditional colleges now face a similar challenge, thanks to free or…