Aristic Citizenship Education through Community Theatre Practice – Developing Protocols of Teaching and Tools for Collaborative Evaluation Erasmus Project

Project Title

Aristic Citizenship Education through Community Theatre Practice – Developing Protocols of Teaching and Tools for Collaborative Evaluation

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Social dialogue

Project Summary

Although community theatre projects usually have a special focus on certain social and/or moral issues and are created with the intention of having a short/long-term effect on the community they work with, the field has faced the problem of evaluating the success of these projects due to a lack of general validating and quality assessment system (and due to the duality of aesthetic expectations and social effectiveness). The present project design sets the target to create an international partnership to develop a validating system specifically for (adult) community theatre projects. In the framework of an ERASMUS+ Strategic Partnership, we intend to team up with experienced partners in the field of community theatre to work together in a 29-month-long period in order to discuss the experiences and possibilities of evaluating, validating community theatre projects with the outcome of a handbook and toolbox helping new community theatre projects.

The main objective of our project is to create and share an evaluation methodology in a democratic system (in the equal relation of theatrical and sociological professional) which are acceptable and relevant from sociological perspective but are also applicable by theatre practitioners – without the necessary involvement of sociologists.

In the frames of this project design, we target non-formal educational forms (community theatre projects) through which participants (the audience/participants of the projects) learn indirectly (e.g. active citizenship, democratic citizenship, personal skills etc.). In this context, other practising experts creating community theatre projects can be also considered as subjects of adult education. They will be also the main beneficiaries of the intellectual product of the project (the handbook).

The intellectual outputs of our project are an evaluation methodology collection and a handbook for theatre experts and sociologist researchers who take part in creating community theatre projects for adults. Our secondary target groups are the stakeholders and decision-makers who support, evaluate and describe community theatre projects. For them, the development of this project would be specifically useful.

Activities in the project:
– mobilities (partner organizations visiting each other)
– workshops (partners introducing themselves and discussing validation with invited experts)
– development of the intellectual product (developing an evaluation toolbox and a handbook for community theatre projects)

Summary of the Handbook (O1):
The prepared handbook will give a practical example of the usage of the evaluation method developed through the project in a comprehensible way. This book (and its translations) assures that the methodology will be comprehensible, transparent, adaptable and usable not just for the project partners but for a community theatre professionals working with any social issues. The handbook will archive also the development process of the methodology collection, but its function is more complex. It introduces the implementation of the project, its difficulties and lessons. It introduces the community theatre practices and works of the partners from the pilot project’s perspective. This introduction validates the project from a theatrical point of view and also makes a solid background to understand the project. The description of the pilot projects from common criteria helps the professional using the book with practical aspects for the use of evaluation methods.

Summary of the Collection of Evaluation methods (O2):
This is an embeddable online (flash based) toolbox consisting of a step-by-step introduction and at least twelve (3*4) methods chosen and tested collaboratively by the partners. Methods consist of both individual and collaborative, verbal and non-verbal arts-based techniques that can be used by lay participants and interpreted by participants and arts professional together. Methods are allocated for a diagnostic, an intermediate, and a closing phase of a community theatre based citizenship education process. All methods are presented through short descriptions to arts practitioners and by making downloadable all the required documents for implementation. Documentation consists of the instructions for whom the tool is dedicated (participants). Documentation format depends on the given method i.e modifiable pdf for diaries, xls files for questionnaires, word files for drama based evaluation games etc.) The idea behind using embeddable flash for the collection is that, instead of simply putting the tools online, we would like to enhance the dissemination of the toolbox: Community theatre projects in the future may make public on their own homepage what evaluation techniques they use for tracking their citizenship education process.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 135910 Eur

Project Coordinator

Kava Kulturalis Muhely Egyesulet & Country: HU

Project Partners

• Parforum Nonprofit Közhasznú Kft
• Saechsische Staatstheater – Semperoper
• Vibeke Flesland Havre