Dramatizing the Data for Dialogic Dissemination

Presenter: Dr Joe Norris
This webinar is part of the webinar series on Insights in Qualitative Research Methods, a partnership between ATLAS.ti, the International Qualitative Research Toolkit at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, and Inquiry Methodology at the Indiana University School of Education.

For the past 26 years Mirror Theatre, primarily under the direction of Joe Norris, has conducted external and internal research with the intent of producing and performing data driven scenarios live and/or virtually that elucidate key elements of the social issue under investigation. Topics have included academic integrity, practicum-placement politics, person-centred care, implicit bias/cultural humility, heart disease, violence in the workplace, bullying in schools, mental health, human sexuality and the first-year university experience. Rather than creating didactic scenes that could be prescriptive in nature, these vignettes are designed to be interactive, inviting audiences to rewrite the scenes, providing their own perspectives as they, with cast members enact new variations. This is in keeping with Freire’s belief (1986) that students and participants should regard themselves as both consumers and producers of knowledge.