Modeling Social Activism and Teaching About Violence Against Women Through Theatre Education

To inform students about global violence against women and to empower them to take action, the authors developed an interdisciplinary course focused on experiential learning and theatre education. Their article discusses the development of the course; the implementation of active learning strategies to develop critical thinking, empathy, and social engagement; and relevant course outcomes. They developed an eight-credit "cluster" course that addressed violence against women from an interdisciplinary perspective and that integrated content and pedagogy from two academic disciplines--psychology and theatre. Through the curricular design of cluster courses at their college, two professors (one each from psychology and theatre) were able to coteach this course and to develop activities based on the strengths and theoretical grounding of both disciplines. Their course was taught at a small liberal arts college where over 90% of the approximately 1,500 students are White, in the age range of 18-22, and from the surrounding region that encompasses two states.