How to embrace culturally different voices: a search to produce a new educational drama practice in Korea

Kim, Ju Yeoun (2009) How to embrace culturally different voices: a search to produce a new educational drama practice in Korea. Doctoral thesis, Birmingham City University.

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Abstract

Through the study, the research question, "how to embrace culturally heterogeneous voices with the Western approach to educational drama", is explored in theory and practice. In particular, this question corresponds to the needs of current educational drama in South Korea, 20 years after the introduction of Western approaches. The answer to the research question is therefore sought in discovering a particular way of Korean educational drama practice which can accommodate Korean cultural sensibilities with the Western way of educational drama.

From the literature review, it is found that if any educational drama programme intends to involve educational drama seeking some features of the West and culturally different aesthetic and artistic feelings, they should be handled separately. In addition, the separate implementation of culturally different aesthetic and artistic concepts brings out some effects in terms of identity. Students become conscious and critical of their identities and accordingly their identities become multiple. Going further, they are open to new dimensions of the self. In this sense, a particular way of Korean educational drama practice is theoretically identified in which Sadari dramatic play involving socially critical perception and Haemaru dramatic play embodying kil hung/ shinmyoung p'uri are included and conducted separately.

In order to make the theoretically constructed programme more workable in practice, the study carries out action research in the real classroom, identifying problems, challenges and strategies. The outcome of the action research demonstrates that such theoretically identified findings are realizable in real practice but some suggestions are made to bring out such features better.

Firstly, for educational drama like Sadari dramatic play, which pursues socially and culturally conscious and critical awareness through emotional engagement, it is useful for teachers to have a gauging tool to measure how much emotional involvement is made and how much critical detachment and cognitive awareness is developed; then, problems and strategies to resolve the problems can be identified. Since Bundy's model used in this research as the measuring tool lacks detailed explanation of the process to link emotional engagement to critical reflection, this study therefore proposes that a model with a more articulate explanation of the process can be tried in the future.

Secondly, for the culturally different artistic feeling like the kif ht1ng/ shinmyoung p'uri of Haemaru dramatic play, the awareness of new artistic feeling requires three stages: engagement with the given artistic media; grasp of the feeling and cognitive understanding of the artistic feeling. Therefore, if any problem arises, it can be examined with regard to these three stages.

Thirdly, the emergence of critical reflection of the self through encountering culturally diverse dramatic languages does not occur without accompanying emotional conflicts such as fear, excitement and anger. The teacher's intervention to bring out critical reflection can be impossible unless students demonstrate affective responses.

Fourthly, if educational drama practice attempts to bring out openness to new dimensions of the self by confronting culturally diverse dramatic languages, this study suggests having an experimental stage to provide the opportunity to view and to experiment with given dramatic languages differently and to observe the process of creation. Since this strategy is not actually applied in this research and only identifies the potential, this study proposes that this can be tried in the future.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Dates:	Date Event November 2009 Completed
Subjects:	CAH25 - design, and creative and performing arts > CAH25-02 - performing arts > CAH25-02-03 - drama CAH22 - education and teaching > CAH22-01 - education and teaching > CAH22-01-01 - education
Divisions:	Faculty of Health, Education and Life Sciences > Centre for Study of Practice and Culture in Education (C-SPACE) Doctoral Research College > Doctoral Theses Collection
Depositing User:	Richard Birley
Date Deposited:	20 Jul 2017 09:36
Last Modified:	03 Mar 2022 17:02
URI:	https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/4915

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