Drama: A Comparative Analysis of Individual Narratives

Authors

Susanna Belle Spaulding, Colorado Mountain CollegeFollow
James Banning, Colorado State UniversityFollow
Clifford P. Harbour, University of WyomingFollow
Timothy Gray Davies, Colorado State UniversityFollow

Abstract

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.

Keywords

Dramatic Text, Narrative Inquiry, College in Prison, and Comparative Analysis

Publication Date

9-1-2009

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Recommended APA Citation

Spaulding, S. B., Banning, J., Harbour, C. P., & Davies, T. G. (2009). Drama: A Comparative Analysis of Individual Narratives. The Qualitative Report, 14(3), 524-565. DOI: https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2009.1409