In the US, arts-related opportunities in public schools often get cut first, due to budgetary constraints and competing priorities. The lack of expansive and sustained arts education programming (dance, visual arts, music, drama/theater, media arts) impacts millions of US students who have fewer opportunities to benefit from the merits of such creative endeavors. Arts education has been touted as important, for example, to develop 21st-century skills (e.g., creativity, problem-solving, innovation) and socio-emotional learning, among other affordances. An alternative practice that supports the inclusion of the arts in public, often low-SES schools, involves integrating arts-based activities within content area classrooms. For this type of integration, however, teacher education programs may need to prepare “generalist” teachers to infuse and integrate the arts by creating innovative models for arts integration for non-arts preservice teachers.

The studies reported in this dissertation, part of a larger program of research at the UC Davis School of Education, address such needs. In the first chapter, I offer my position for arts integration in non-arts classrooms. I then present a summary of the literature on drama affordances, drawing from previously published research in the fields of the learning sciences, English Language Arts (ELA) education, second language acquisition, teacher education (TE), and drama/classroom drama in education. The next two chapters present the theories and tenets framing the overall set of studies, and the methods utilized to address the research questions presented in Chapter One. Overall, this dissertation focused on the experiences and reflections of preservice and early-career teachers in their efforts at integrating drama-based practices across subjects and grades, in non-arts classrooms. Teachers’ reflections were supported by sustained teacher engagement with drama/theater arts-based programming at UC Davis, School of Education, and inquiry into local classrooms.

Overall results, reported in Chapters Five through Seven, indicate teachers benefited from sustained engagement in immersive experiences with an art form (drama) and opportunities for reflection and inquiry into practice. Teachers’ individual and collective reflections may have aided their understanding and conceptualization of what is possible in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms, and ways teachers can address challenges of the work. The field needs innovative opportunities to prepare non-arts teachers to integrate arts-based activities in diverse classrooms. In addition to teachers’ reflections of practice, student data (e.g., surveys and interviews) might also offer additional insights for researchers, teacher educators, and classroom teachers to further understand how arts-based approaches impact individual learners. Inquiring into students’ experiences in learning about and through arts-based activities may inform ways to continue supporting non-arts teachers’ efforts at integrating arts-based activities in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms.