“We Do Not Choose This Life”: Advocating for and Empowering Those Living with Poverty Through Applied Theatre

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to explore issues of language, culture, and identity within the context of diversity in educational settings, specifically among teachers and professors of education. Approach – This chapter explores issues of language, culture and identity through an account of the author's stories of experience as the child of immigrants who survived the Holocaust, a teacher in multicultural classrooms and, particularly, a professor of education. Findings – This chapter highlights the importance of sharing stories of lived experiences – particularly as they relate to language, culture and identity – as a crucial step in engaging empathetically with the experiences of students from diverse backgrounds. The importance of engaging holistically, emotionally and aesthetically are highlighted. Research implications – This narrative inquiry makes visible how a professor of education can live out a curriculum alongside her graduate students in education as a way of helping them as teachers live alongside their students. Value – The value of this chapter is its use of personal narratives and incidents in the university classroom to highlight the importance of caring relationship in the promotion of equity and diversity, especially in relation to language, culture and identity.

Reviewed by: Applied Theatre: Aesthetics ed. by Gareth White Aaron Zilbermann Applied Theatre: Aesthetics. Edited by Gareth White. Applied Theatre series. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015; pp. 320. Applied theatre is in a precarious situation. Its sustaining institutions, which provide funding for applied theatre projects around the globe, demand a preoccupation with practical efficacy that can be measured in quantitative data. These institutions largely ignore the fact that theatre, as a broad discipline and a specific model for social justice, is a fine art that cannot be separated from aesthetics, regardless of its purpose. There is a place for beauty in applied theatre, although it has not been well-articulated. In his book Applied Theatre: Aesthetics Gareth White confronts this conflict in the social construction of applied theatre. Part theory and part case studies in practical application, Applied Theatre: Aesthetics offers a valuable perspective on the significance of beauty within the context of theatre engaged in social change. In this collaborative work, White enters into a dialogue with various theorists and practitioners on a number of different artistic attitudes within the context of applied theatre. White uses Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment as the basis for a theoretical approach and argues the case for revolutionary thought and practice in aesthetics. White’s edited book is a well-written, well-formatted collection of essays offering conflicting, yet complementary views on these diverging notions of what a revolutionary aesthetic must resemble. Applied Theatre: Aesthetics is organized into four sections: an introduction, parts 1 and 2, and an epilogue. In the introduction White identifies the problem: a lack of concern with aesthetics in applied theatre. He offers a glance at a few conflicting definitions of the term applied theatre and discourages any attempt to create a dominant or governing aesthetic. This is a discourse, not a consistent collection of procedures and methods to be implemented in the creation of art. Most significantly, the introduction offers a potential for beauty within interventionist art. In part 1 (consisting of chapters 1 and 2) White provides an illuminating inquiry into the philosophical concepts of aesthetics, and attempts to develop them within the context of a case study: the development and performance of Eye Queue Hear, a “performative audio walk” created and performed in 2013 by Access All Areas, a theatre company located in London’s East End, working with individuals struggling with learning disabilities. Using this case, White is better able to characterize and clarify his contention maintained throughout chapter 2: “beauty, as a prime example of the aesthetic in its exceptional form,” should be “viewed as a social, progressive or even radical good” (62). He denounces aesthetic autonomy and advocates for a theory that accepts heteronomy. Ultimately, White concludes that the worth of beauty is interrelated to the artistic products of the participants, and in the diversity of their interpretation of each experience. Part 2 consists of six chapters, each written by a different applied theatre practitioner. Each case study is vastly different regarding context, methodology, scope, purpose, [End Page 271] and space, yet each in its own unique way addresses the issue of aesthetics within applied theatre. White includes essays written by Nicola Shaughnessy, Mojisola Adebayo, Kirsten Sadeghi-Yekta, Ananda Breed, Anna Hickey-Moody, and Brian Heap. Some of the essays challenge the efficacy of applied theatre aesthetics in educational institutions and other social settings, especially when placed in the hands of inadequate educators and facilitators. Others advocate for a new aesthetic that embraces process and participation. There are a number of different conceptions presented throughout part 2 of Applied Theatre: Aesthetics, but one consistency seems to be that a heightened experience of the senses can encourage change. In one of the essays, Adebayo brilliantly explains her creative process, walking us through the development of I Stand Corrected (ISC) with South African choreographer Mamela Nyamza. ISC is a performance that uses rape as the impetus to raise questions and debate about homophobia, particularly in postcolonial societies. Through audience surveys, post-performance conversations, and critics, Adebayo discovered that her work was overwhelmingly described as “beautiful” and “powerful.” She uses this case study to argue that the pursuit of aesthetic beauty found in ISC exemplifies...

This article presents the Norwegian applied theatre project called P:UNKT, which suggests a meeting point, a crossroads and encounters. The aim of the project was to stimulate integration and cultural diversity, with the outreach nature of P:UNKT resulting in new ways of interaction and collaboration across groups and institutions. I conducted research on the project from 2010 to 2012 and three years later, in 2016. I claim that the project enabled ethnic Norwegians and immigrants to create unique storytelling theatre together that transcended the conventional preconceptions of us and them, resulting in the emergence of a new ‘we’. This type of social and applied theatre run by a professional, state-funded theatre is not common in Norway. The findings of my research are therefore of relevance to local communities, theatre companies and politicians. The P:UNKT project is an example of the active role that applied theatre can play in shaping Norwegian identity construction in the twenty-first century.

Straipsnyje atskleidžiama negalios ir seksualumo kaip teisės į kokybišką gyvenimą aspektai socialinių darbuotojų požiūriu. Aptariamos proto negalią turinčių asmenų teisės bei visuomenės nuostatos. Analizuojamas seksualumas žmonių, turinčių proto negalią, kontekste. Atskleidžiama socialinių darbuotojų nuomonė apie proto negalią turinčių žmonių seksualumą.

High-profile events where in response to the experience of breast cancer women take on adventure activities to raise awareness and/or funds for breast cancer are increasing. These activities offer physical and psychological challenges within a peer support group setting. We investigated the experiences of 21 breast cancer survivors who participated in a 7-day breast cancer awareness motorcycle ride. Assessments included a qualitative pre/postinterview, solicited diary, pre-6-month follow-up survey. Measures included satisfaction with life, distress, happiness, global well being, meaning in life. Motivators were a desire for peer support, to promote breast cancer awareness, enjoyment, and personal growth. The ride incorporated physical and emotional challenge. A positive peer support experience led to feelings of inner peace, accomplishment, self-learning, a positive perspective, and improved social support. For a minority of women peer support or recreational expectations were not met resulting in negative feelings. No significant changes were observed over time in adjustment measures. Adventure events where women undertake emotional and physical challenge in an environment of group peer support provide opportunity for personal growth. In this context, peer support may provide the catalyst for the experience to become transformational and so is critical to generating positive outcomes. Realistic expectations of the ride are also influential.

Childhood maltreatment history may influence autonomic reactivity and recovery to stressors. Hypothetically, the maltreatment history may contribute to a retuned autonomic nervous system that is reflected in a novel metric, vagal efficiency (VE), designed to assess the functional efficiency of vagal cardioinhibitory pathways on heart rate. We explored whether VE mediates the well-documented relationship between maltreatment history and psychiatric symptoms. We also investigated the relationship between measures of autonomic regulation in response to the physical and emotional challenges and psychiatric symptoms. Participants (n = 167) completed self-report measures of psychiatric symptoms and had continuous beat-to-beat heart rate monitored before, during, and after physical and emotional stressors. Participants with maltreatment histories exhibited lower VE, which mediated the association of maltreatment history and the psychiatric symptoms of anxiety and depression. Consistent with prior literature, there were significant associations between maltreatment history and autonomic reactivity (i.e., heart rate and respiratory sinus arrhythmia) during emotional and physical challenges; however, when VE was entered as a covariate these associations were no longer statistically significant. Blunted VE may reflect a neural pathway through which maltreatment retunes autonomic regulation and provides a neurophysiological platform that increases mental health risk.

Understanding and enhancing post-stroke recovery: Insights from a nested qualitative study within the MindFit Project randomized clinical trial

BackgroundHalf of the older adult population worldwide is expected to undergo surgery at least once in their lifetime, with hip and knee replacements being among the most common procedures. Recovery after surgery is particularly difficult for older adults because of age-related physiological changes, an increased risk of complications, and the need for self-management at home following brief hospital stays. Emotional challenges such as fear, anxiety, and loss of independence further impact recovery, yet these aspects are often overlooked in clinical care. Currently, there is a lack of understanding of how older adults experience postoperative recovery after hip replacement surgery over time.ObjectiveTo explore the experiences of recovery over time among older adults during the first year after hip replacement surgery.MethodsThis descriptive longitudinal qualitative study included 30 older adults scheduled for hip replacement surgery at a university hospital in Sweden. Semistructured interviews were conducted twice, at fourteen days and one year after surgery. The data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis, following a Pattern-Oriented Longitudinal approach to inductively describe experiences over time.ResultsThe analysis resulted in one overarching theme: “the bumpy road to recovery” and three categories: physical challenges post-surgery, cognitive and emotional changes after surgery, and social and daily life adjustments. Recovery involves a balance between resting, managing symptoms, and regaining strength. For many, recovery involves physical, emotional, and cognitive challenges that feel discouraged.ConclusionThis study highlights the complex and individualized recovery process after hip replacement surgery. The participants navigated physical, cognitive, emotional, and social challenges and reached a new stable state after surgery. Balancing rest and activity, managing symptoms, and maintaining social connections are key factors for successful recovery. Preoperative education and support from healthcare providers and family members are vital in improving the recovery process for older adults.

Applied Theatre is a widely accepted term to describe a set of practices that encompass community, social and participatory theatre making. It is an area of performance practice that is flourishing within international contexts and communities. This book offers a critical consideration of long-term applied and participatory theatre projects. In doing so it is a timely analysis of the concepts that inform applied theatre and argues that a number of concepts that form cornerstones of the discipline, have become shibboleths in applied theatre thinking, practice and teaching. The book problematises some of these key concepts, specifically regarding change and transformation, safe spaces, impact, exit strategies, ethical practice, process versus product and the concept of the applied theatre practitioner tool kit. Busby analyses applied theatre projects in India, Malta, New Zealand, the USA and the UK to consider her key question: is the 21st century the end for applied theatre as it was understood to function at the end of the previous century? Drawing on 20 years of practice in prisons, youth theatres and with street and slum-dwellers, this book focuses on long-term interventions that raise troubling questions about applied theatre, cultural colonialism and power, while arguing that community or participatory theatre conversely has the potential to generate a resilient sense of optimism, or what Busby terms a ‘nebulous utopia’.

Distinct psycho-oncological support inclinations and needs in patients with cancer: A large sample latent class analysis approach

Determinants of poor life satisfaction in adolescents with congenital heart disease or early acquired cardiovascular disease: a nationwide observational study

The Map is not the Territory. (Bateson, 1972) We see the world, not as it is but as we are – or as we are conditioned to see it. (Covey, 2004) We have explored so far two elements of participatory practice that are key to transformative change and, in doing so, we have indicated that neither can achieve that potential without the third element: critical reflection. While we can start to open up the spaces for engagement with story and dialogue, to sow the seeds of individual and collective learning for change, reflection and reflexivity need to be interwoven into those elements to create the fabric of critical knowledge and thoughtful action. This cannot be an added extra but has to be integral to all we do. We can encourage people to tell their stories of lived experience and we can enter into dialogue together about what we hear, but this will remain a surface activity unless we add critical reflection for learning to happen. So, this chapter will explore what we mean by critical reflection and offer some conceptual ideas taken from critical and other theorists to help in the facilitation of critical reflection, particularly concerning power, both for ourselves and others. At the core is the art of questioning the taken-for-granteds of everyday life and going ever deeper in that exploration through the continual cycling of reflection and action that underpins praxis and is the basis of transformation, encouraging us all to look below the surface and nurture the development of a sense of curiosity about why things are as they are.

In Fall 2024, the University of Calgary Faculty of Nursing launched its inaugural Indigenous health course within the new Bachelor of Science in Nursing curriculum. Rather than simply providing a stand-alone course, this first-year course provides the foundation for ongoing learning and transformation needed to prepare nursing students to provide culturally safe care to Indigenous peoples. In this article, we will share the curriculum design process and implementation of the first iterations of the course. We will highlight the long-standing relationships and trust built over years that made it possible for a group of women (a Mi'kmaw/Irish/English settler scholar, a Scottish/German settler nurse scholar, and a Lakota/Dakota Elder, and scholar) to work together from course design to implementation and validation. Through the embodied practice of "first voice" as eloquently articulated in the epilogue by Graveline, we are leading change through stories of lived experiences that enable us to forefront Indigenous ways of knowing, being, doing, and connecting from our unique locations.

Formal ethical review of research proposals is now almost the default requirement for all – staff and students – planning research under the auspices of colleges and universities in many parts of the world. With notable exceptions, the extant literature discussing educational research ethics takes a meta-ethical overview, is negatively critical about the ethics review process per se, or comes from America and focuses specifically on the workings of the Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) there. This book, however, contains stories of lived experience from the UK, Spain, New Zealand, Bangladesh, and Australia dealing with, inter alia: dissatisfactions with criteria against which research proposals and designs and, by extension, researchers themselves, are judged to be ethical; problems encountered in obtaining ethical clearance; changes which have had to be made to plans which are believed to have affected the ensuing research process and outcomes; cases where ethical issues and difficulties arose and required considered responses despite permission to undertake the research in question being granted; and benefits perceived to accrue from ethical review procedures.

Beyond the notion of decision-making of career choice just being rational, this article proposes the primacy of ‘affect’ in the decision to become teachers over time. The article explores the becoming of immigrant English language teachers as an identity formation process, focusing on the lived experiences of 16 English language teachers since early childhood, mostly prior to their migration to Australia. Findings of the hermeneutic phenomenological narrative analysis of the teachers’ reflective accounts revealed two lines of becoming and their intersections—the line of becoming an English language learner and the line of becoming an English language teacher through decision-making for career choice. The histories of their initial professional decision to ‘become’ English teachers demonstrate the interplay of socially produced desires and personal investment in professional learning and capabilities since early childhood. Through unravelling the assemblages within which their desires to become teachers were fomented and strengthened through embodied lived experiences over a long period of time, we argue that the concept of English teachers’ ‘desired becoming’ informed their initial and long-term decision about career choice. This notion provides a window into the teachers’ decision-making of career choice in terms of the formation of their professional identities as an interplay of the affective and the rational. Embracing and appreciating the combined role of the affective and the rational in teachers’ becoming is important to consider in future research in this area as well as for teacher recruitment and retention, hence potentially addressing critical teacher shortages.