Stimulating teachers’ equity literacy through drama and theatre-based work forms: A systematic review

Abstract

As classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse, teachers often find themselves in a prominent position within initiatives to provide a safe learning environment with equal opportunities for every student in the classroom. This requires preparation for diversity and inclusion within teacher education. This systematic review explores the use of drama and theatre-based work forms in pre-service and in-service teacher education to elicit critical reflection among teachers, as a means to prepare them for the diverse classroom. A comprehensive search in electronic databases resulted in 26 eligible articles that were analysed using Gorski's equity literacy approach (2016) as a framework. Various drama and theatre-based work forms emerged from the data. The drama and theatre-based work forms could be categorised as work forms focused on embodiment, prompted drama, stepping in, and collective play building. The equity-related outcomes for teachers involved skills and competences such as empathy, perspective-taking and collaboration, shifts in attitude regarding diversity and inclusion, as well as advocacy and willingness to teach for social justice. The findings suggest that drama and theatre-based work forms can enhance teachers' equity literacy skills, or prerequisites to those skills, and, consequently, can be applied in pre-service and in-service teacher professional development aiming at educational justice.