Open AccessDrama: A Comparative Analysis of Individual Narratives
Author(s) -
Susanna Belle Spaulding,
James H. Banning,
Clifford P. Harbour,
Timothy Gray Davies
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the qualitative report
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.335
H-Index - 35
ISSN - 2160-3715
DOI - 10.46743/2160-3715/2009.1409
Subject(s) - narrative , drama , prison , pedagogy , meaning (existential) , participant observation , narrative inquiry , sociology , psychology , context (archaeology) , negotiation , power (physics) , social psychology , linguistics , social science , visual arts , criminology , philosophy , art , paleontology , physics , quantum mechanics , psychotherapist , biology
In a narrative inquiry, five educators who taught college in prison share stories about working in this non-traditional learning environment that is often dangerous and frustrating. From the tension between the prison's emphasis on social control and the educators' concern for democratic classrooms, three broad themes emerged: working in borderlands, negotiating power relations, and making personal transformations. Large intact segments from transcripts of participant interviews form a dramatic text that illuminates how a selected group of educators made meaning of their experience teaching college courses to incarcerated students. A comparative analysis presented in a one act play brings together the individual participant voices to tell a collective story, which has meaning in the context of a shared emotional experience.