Performance Theory

Performance is a manifestation of knowledge through and on bodies situated in culture. All performance theory assumes everyday and aesthetic (e.g., “on stage,” etc.) performances are necessarily interdependent and therefore ought to be subject to similar scrutiny. In order to understand performance theories in education, one first needs a functional understanding of performance studies. Craig Gingrich-Philbrook, in his 1998 article “Disciplinary Violation as Gender Violation,” offers a definition useful to teachers and scholars of education when he states that “performance studies occurs at a point of speculation about the scale and durability of knowledge brought to consciousness before a particular audience, the aesthetics of this production, and its relationship to similar events for other audiences.”

Three distinct modes of research characterize performance theories in education: everyday ...