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Article Analysis 3: From Data to Drama – The Construction
of an Ethnographic Performance
Name
Liberty University
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Article Analysis 3
This creative arts article explored the work of an educational ethnographer who compiled
his research into an ethnodrama. The researcher visited a private boys’ school once a week for
eighteen weeks interviewing the boys and teachers in the drama department and observing
classes. While the experience started as passive observation, the researcher slowly became
incorporated into the classroom setting with the boys and teachers (Sallis, 2007). This level of
immersion gave the researcher the opportunity to assess the multiple types of masculinities
expressed by the theater students. After finding a place within the program, the researcher
analyzed the collected data and interpreted his personal experiences. The interpretations were
then converted to themes the researched hoped to express through a written ethnodrama (Sallis,
2007). The ethnodrama was performed by the students of the private school and had a focus on
the multiple masculinities of on single-sex boys in a Melbourne private school. The ethnodrama
also explored the process and formation of an ethnographical performance (Sallis, 2007).
Analysis
Research, Overview, Design, and Conclusion
From Data to Drama – The Construction of an Ethnographic Performance was a creative
arts research project assessing if the masculinities prevalent in a drama class were the same as or
rejecting the common types of masculinities expressed in other male-dominated areas. The study
was an assessment of gender identity and varying types of masculinity expressed by boys in the
drama class (Sallis, 2007). A reviewing of existing work was not significantly highlighted in
terms of the masculinity side of the study. The researcher addressed previous studies that
explored how all boy schools were different than commonly held perceptions them, however not
much other prior work on this topic was mentioned (Sallis, 2007). However, the researcher for
this study did explore the validity and assessed the efficiency of other ethnographers use of
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ethnodramas to present their research. This step was important because the main presentation of
research used for this study was an ethnodrama and ethnotheater. The ethnotheater is the physical
performance of the researcher’s experience while the ethnodrama is the written play derived
from the researcher’s notes, interviews, document analysis, and journal entries (Hark, 2017).
This method was particularly insightful because the researcher wanted to convey the social
aspects of masculinity in drama while incorporating his own personal experience (Hark, 2017).
Part of the script was even written from direct quotes from the boys the researcher interviewed.
This aspect of the ethnodrama helped the researcher sufficiently express personal themes derived
from the study as well as a straightforward representation of the type of masculinity seen within
the drama setting (Sallis, 2007).
After the completion of the ethnodrama, the researcher found this method of research
effectively demonstrated his personal experiences as well as gave an appropriate representation
of the masculinity seen within the drama setting through an artistic form of expression (Sallis,
2007). However, the researcher struggled with tensions that arose from ethical considerations,
anonymity issues, and aesthetical differences. While these issues were a point of contention
throughout the ethnodrama presentation and caused an imbalance with the scholarly side of the
project, the researcher still viewed this work as a positive and successful study that adequately
conveyed the researcher question and resulting answer (Sallis, 2007).
Limitations and Future Research
The study’s depiction in its purest form was limited by issues of anonymity. Because the
ethnodrama dealt with sexuality as well as masculinity, the researcher had to change the original
script from using only direct quotes to using combinations of words and actions to form
composite characters for certain situations (Sallis, 2007). This change in the study prevented
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complete depiction of what occurred at times, but student identities were kept to the most
attainable level of anonymity possible within a small private boys’ school. Another limitation
was the study’s focus on a private school drama department. While the ethnodrama is relevant to
other private boys’ schools, the research could not be generalized to public school drama
programs. An additional limitation was caused by differences in aesthetic opinions. While the
researcher wanted to maintain a script that displayed events exactly as they happened, others
suggested the addition of theatrical liberties to enhance public appeal (Sallis, 2007). Therefore,
the personal narrative told within the ethnodrama is not an entirely true depiction of the events
that occurred. However, series limitations to the study were not overtly asserted within the
article. The author also failed to mention any future plans for this study or branching studies
connected to the knowledge produced from this research.
Methodological Differences and Alternative Designs
Research through the creative arts varied greatly from the sciences. One of the most
evident differences between the two areas of research was the focus of the project. The science
article was all about the end result and discussing if the researcher’s original hypothesis had been
met. Meanwhile, the creative arts article focused on the researcher’s process of gathering data for
the ethnodrama and creating the ethnodrama around the masculinity of the private boys’ school
drama department students (Sallis, 2007). The creative arts choose to focus on the process and
believe the steps to answering the questions of how and why are the most key part of the research
(Hark, 2017). Therefore, a hypothesis is not as critical to the creative arts research design as it is
to a science research design. In the previous science article, a great emphasis was placed on
proving or disproving that great amounts of prayer and sanctification reduced the occurrence of
infidelity within a marriage (Kalantar & Reich, 2018). Meanwhile, this creative arts article never
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fully articulated a hypothesis, but wondered what masculinity was like in a privatized student
male-only drama department and if it was different than the typical educational environments
(Sallis, 2007). Part of the process in the creative arts is defining the process, but that does not
necessarily mean form a hypothesis (Hark, 2017). Instead, the researcher is just asking a question
and observing what he/ she sees in the setting. Also, the creative arts analysis of the physical data
observed was different from the sciences approach. The science article looked to quantify all
responses and maintain an objective standpoint within the research. The creative arts researcher
looked to pull themes from the interviews he had with the students and had to interpret his own
experiences (Sallis, 2007). The analytical part of the creative arts, especially within an
ethnodrama, revolves around the researcher intuitively finding themes from their personal
experiences, then adding theoretical scaffolding, and capturing the final ideas that have emerged
from the researcher's writing (Hark, 2017).
The creative arts research process is like the humanities process, but there are some
evident differences. One of the greatest differences is how the creative arts paradigm “sees
research as a performance” (Hark, 2017). The humanities article simply presented the
researchers’ experiences in France as a personal narrative, but the creative arts article took the
researcher’s experience and turned it into an ethnodrama. Additionally, the humanities article
looked to expand their research and had future plans for their study. Meanwhile, the creative arts
article ended with a conclusion of the ethnodrama process and the lasting impact the of how the
drama helped the boys, as well as the teachers, understand the negative impacts the societal
imposed ideas of masculinity had on the students (Sallis, 2007). The studies also differed in the
inception of the study. Humanities articles usually occur retrospectively from a researcher
extrapolating culture themes from analysis of a trip or experience that already occurred (Hark,
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2017). This creative arts article came into the experience with questions and a focus on private
school drama boys’ masculinity that the researcher hoped to analyze and eventually share his
findings through an ethnodrama (Sallis, 2007).
In terms of alternative art forms that this project could have been represented as the
researcher could have opted for video/visual ethnography. Visual ethnography is an alternative
creative art form that "uses photographic and video images […] to represent an experience
through image” (Hark, 2017). This creative arts article revolved around boys’ masculinity and
sexuality. Therefore, visual ethnography would have been a good alternative, due to the fact
“image-based ethnography articulates ways of ‘looking and being’ rather than ways of judging”
(Hark, 2017). The interviews the researcher had could have been recorded and presented in a
documentary-like fashion. Also, all the time the researcher spent in observation of the drama
department could have been recorded. The researcher could also obtain data first, analyze the
themes he wanted to present, and then create a film afterward as another possibility.
If this article subject were to be adapted to another research paradigm, the researcher
could design the study for the sciences. Instead of interviews, the teachers and the students could
answer surveys assessing on scales of 1, strongly disagree, to 5, strongly agree their feelings
towards questions on the environment of the drama department and elements of sexual
expression. The students could also answer survey questions about how they felt about their own
sexual preferences and how they felt about expressing their masculinity within the private all-
boys school setting. All the data could be compiled and run under statistical analysis and then
presented as an acceptance or a rejection of a hypothesis on the masculinity of private school
boys.
Word Count:1546
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References
Hark, K. J. (2017). Research across the disciplines: An introduction. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt.
Reich, N. & Kalantar, S.M. (2018) The role of praying for the spouse and sanctification of
marriage in reducing infidelity, mental health, religion & culture. 21:1, 65-
76, DOI: 10.1080/13674676.2018.1447555
Sallis, R. (2007). From Data to Drama - the Construction of an Ethnographic Performance. NJ:
Drama Australia Journal, 31(2), 7–20. https://doi-
org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.1080/14452294.2007.11649514
