Positioning the drama teacher: exploring the power of identity in teaching practices

Abstract

This paper examines how drama teachers’ identities play a part in their teaching practices in schools. It highlights what can be learned from drama teachers’ expressions of self for their classroom content and management. Much of the current research into teachers and teaching is concerned with ‘good practice’ where students are placed at the centre of the discourse. This paper suggests that when teachers are positioned at the centre of studies deep and profound understandings of classroom teaching practices can emerge. The growing awareness of the significance of teacher subjectivities and how they influence the work of teachers is initially presented, followed by a discussion and analysis of aspects of a research project that investigated the physical, cognitive and emotional experiences of a group of female drama teachers. The teachers articulate how they strive to be ‘good’ school-teachers, but their notions of good teaching practices are diverse, shifting and often contradictory. The paper contends that since drama is a subject within the curriculum that focuses on subjectivities, there is a moral and ethical obligation for drama teachers to have an understanding of how their own subjectivities can be imposed on and influence their students. It is only in gaining an understanding of how the personal social and political can enter the drama teachers’ classrooms and are applied to teaching practices that they can begin to comprehend how their work can simultaneously educate and inhibit, free and constrict their students.