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Performance Theories in Education

Power, Pedagogy, and the Politics of Identity

• Edited by Bryant Keith Alexander, Gary L. Anderson, Bernardo Gallegos

• Price: $39.95
• Binding: Paperback (also available in Hardback)
• Pages: 456
• Published by: Routledge
• Publication Date: 26th October 2004
• ISBN: 978-0-8058-4821-2

About the Book

Performance Theories in Education: Power, Pedagogy, and the Politics of Identity breaks new ground by presenting a range of approaches to understanding the role, function, impact, and presence of performance in education. It is a definitive contribution to a beginning dialogue on how performance, as a theoretical and pragmatic lens, can be used to view the processes, procedures, and politics of education. The conceptual framework of the volume is the editors' argument that performance and performativity help to locate and describe repetitive actions plotted within grids of power relationships and social norms that comprise the context of education and schooling.

The book brings together performance studies and education researchers, teachers, and scholars to investigate such topics as:
*the relationship between performance and performativity in pedagogical practice; *the nature and impact of performing identities in varying contexts;
*cultural and community configurations that fall under the umbrella of teaching, education, and schooling; and
*the hot button issues of educational policies and reform as performances.

With the aim of developing a clearer understanding of the effect, affect, and role of performance in education, the volume provides a crucial starting point for discourse among theorists and teacher practitioners who are interested in understanding and acknowledging the politics of performance and the practices of performative social identities that always and already intervene in the educational endeavor.

Table of Contents

Contents: P. McLaren, Foreword. B.K. Alexander, G.L. Anderson, B.P. Gallegos, Introduction: Performance in Education. Part I: Performance and Performativity in Pedagogical Practice. E.L. Pineau, Teaching Is Performance: Reconceptualizing a Problematic Metaphor. B.K. Alexander, Critically Analyzing Pedgagogical Interactions as Performance. J. Hamera, Exposing the Pedagogical Body: Protocols and Tactics. J.T. Warren, Bodily Excess and the Desire for Absence: Whiteness and the Making of (Raced) Educational Subjectivities. Part II: Performance, Power, and the Politics of Identity. B.P. Gallegos, Performing School in the Shadow of Imperialism: A Hybrid (Coyote) Interpretation. D.T. Baszile, When Public Performances Go Awry: Reading the Dynamics of Diversity Through Power, Pedagogy, and Protest on Campus. G. Aleman, Constructing Gay Performances: Regulating Gay Youth in a "Gay-Friendly" High School. L. Urrieta, Jr., "Playing the Game" Versus "Selling Out": Chicanas and Chicanos Relationship to Whitestream Schools. Part III: Policy, Ritual, and Textual Performances. G.L. Anderson, Performing School Reform in the Age of the Political Spectacle. D.E. Foley, Performance Theory and Critical Ethnography: Studying Chicano and Mesquaki Youth. R. Donmoyer, Scientists as Scriptwriters: A Study of Educational Researchers' Influence on Educational Decision Making.