Global multi-sited ethnographies using theatre-based, participatory, and digital research methods to examine youth civic engagement and drama pedagogy.
The Gallagher Drama Research Lab pioneers methods of multi-sited collaborative hypermedia ethnography examining issues of youth civic engagement and artistic practice from a local-global perspective, using theatre-based, participatory, ethnographic, and digital research methods. We specifically engage students, teachers and artists as co-researchers. Our lab facilities include high definition recording, video editing, and collaborative communications platforms to share interview data and digitally recorded performances across sites. Young people, teachers, artists, social workers, and researchers are then invited into the reception and critical discussion of school and broader cultural life. This collaborative and artistic work helps us better examine youth civic engagement as intimately connected to underlying beliefs and values that influence human interaction and approaches to curriculum, programs, and governance in schools.
Our current multi-sited project is a five-year hypermedia ethnography titled "Global Youth (Digital) Citizen Artists and their Publics: Performing for Socio-Ecological Justice." We currently work with youth, schools, teachers, and social organizations in Columbia, England, Greece, India, Taiwan, and Canada (Toronto).
Expertise in digital collaborative communication platforms; video editing; qualitative and quantitative coding and analysis using NVivo and StudioCode visual data software; individual and focus group interviewing; creative theatre research methods.
- Arts and cultural industries
- Education
- Policy and governance
Specialized labs and equipment
| Equipment | Function |
|---|---|
| NVivo (for Mac) and Studiocode software | Textual and digital video analysis software. |
| SPSS Statistics software | Statistical analysis of quantitative data. |
| Final Cut Pro | Video editing software. |
| Connect2Create (C2C) | A content management system that facilitates virtual communication between our international collaborators. |
| iPads (5) | Used to capture video and interview and focus group data during fieldwork. |
| iOgrapher Film-making Bundle includes iOgrapher Wide Angle Lens and iOgrapher 2x Telephoto Lens | Connects to iPads and offers greater portability and features to record video and better quality stills during fieldwork. |
| “The Catalogue” | A virtual secure storage library to capture all of our data sets that connects to our content management system (C2C). |
Private and public sector research partners
- Toronto District School Board
- Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario
- Project: Humanity
- Crow’s Theatre
- Young People’s Theatre
- Tarragon Theatre (Toronto/ ON)
- Centre for Education Studies/University of Warwick
- Belgrade Theatre Coventry
- Prerna Girls School-Study Hall Educational Foundation
- Hellenic Theatre/Drama Education Network
- National University of Tainan
- Taiwan Gender Equity Education Association
- United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
Additional information
| Title | URL |
|---|---|
| Finding hope and deep learning in the drama classroom. (CFI story) | https://www.innovation.ca/projects-results/research-stories/finding-hope-deep-learning-drama-classr… |
| Hope in a Collapsing World webinar with Kathleen Gallagher and Andrew Kushnir (discussion on the hybrid format of ethnographic study and playwriting). | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZfL3TBifDo |
| Finding Radical Hope documentary: Drama class and the activist voice. | https://www.oise.utoronto.ca/dr/finding-radical-hope/ |
| Youth, Theatre, Radical Hope and the Ethical Imaginary (interview with Dr. Kathleen Gallagher discussing this international ethnographic study). | https://faculti.net/youth-theatre-radical-hope-and-the-ethical-imaginary/ |
| The Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry presents “Building Mental Health Resilience in the Face of Social Disadvantage - Cultivating creative and collective resilience in youth well-being: The relational piece of care” (presentation by Dr. Kathleen Gallagher). | https://www.kaltura.com/index.php/extwidget/preview/partner_id/2198371/uiconf_id/46318191/entry_id/…? |
| Finding What's Real in Research and Theatre (interview with Dr. Kathleen Gallagher on bringing research to life through the verbatim play Towards Youth: A play on radical hope). | https://ctr.utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/ctr.181.009?journalCode=ctr |
| RSC Café’s Lightening Talk (Professor Kathleen Gallagher’s introduces her research at her induction as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.) | https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-1ImVqZkbMQ&feature=youtu.be |
| Professor Kathleen Gallagher and a Pedagogy of the Real by Drama/Theatre Education Research Podcast with Professor Peter Duffy of the University of South Carolina, USA. | https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/pbduff/episodes/2017-02-07T10_06_48-08_00 |
| Interview with International Research Collaborator, Dr. Myrto Pigou-Repousi, Open University of Cyprus, Athens, Greece. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlV4RShzqiw |
| Interview with International Research Collaborator, Dr. Urvashi Sahni, Study Hall Educational Foundation/Prerna Girls School, Lucknow, India. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2B9cxf1F9Q |
| Interview with International Research Collaborator, Dr. Wan-Jung Wang, National University of Tainan, Tainan, Taiwan. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjjIzXxRu-8 |
| Interview with International Research Collaborator, Dr. Rachel King and Emily Temple, University of Warwick, Coventry, England. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ls73aLRBX0 |
| Becoming a networked public: digital ethnography, youth and global research collectives (research article by Kathleen Gallagher, Anne Wessels, and Burcu Yaman Ntelioglou). | http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17457823.2013.792507?src=recsys |