Pedagogy of the Assessed: Theatre of the Oppressed as participatory research method to interrogate the impact of assessment in the intercultural classroom
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This study set out to use arts-based methods to visibilize student experiences of coloniality and racism in language assessment practices at a public university in Oaxaca, Mexico. We situate coloniality and racialization within this uniquely diverse Afro-Indigenous context. We justify and contextualize our chosen research paradigms: Participatory Action Research and Critical Ethnography. We then detail the calls for action to which our study responds in order to disrupt the coloniality of both teaching and assessment in Higher Education in Oaxaca. Student- and teacher-researchers adopted three creative practices grounded in critical pedagogies: (1) black-out poetry; (2) image theatre; and, (3) forum theatre. This six-session workshop concluded with a theatre-forum, a piece of immersive, participatory theatre based on a fictionalized account of students’ shared, embodied experiences of racialization and coloniality in relation to language teaching and assessment. We provide a brief description of both the play and subsequent forum, followed by a group reflection provided by teacher-researchers. Our conclusion identifies further useful directions for assessment-oriented research and interventions, as well as evaluating the efficacy of arts-based modes of inquiry.
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