Developing and Testing an ‘Ethical Framework Resource Pack’ for Teaching Participative Performance in Social and Community Settings
Ministry of Education, Taiwan, Teaching Practice Research Project

Theatre Arts, Performing Arts, and Fine Art courses worldwide have encouraged students to create site-specific work involving social, community, and local participation. This trend follows a long history of community-based art, influenced by social science and activist work.

However, while social sciences have clear ethical guidelines for participation, agreed upon by national or international experts, no such guidelines exist for visual or performing arts. This is partly because arts practices have a complex relationship with ethics. Methods suitable for fields like anthropology can be problematic for artistic experimentation and expression.

As teachers of socially engaged arts in community settings, we must guide our students through ethical engagement. The lack of a practical framework for this is a significant issue, as evidenced both by my own experience as a teacher and student feedback.

This Teaching Practice Research Project proposes to develop and test an ‘Ethical Framework Resource Pack’ for teaching participative performance in social and community settings. Funded by the Ministry of Education, Taiwan, Teaching Practice Research Project scheme, the research will unfold over the 2025-26 academic year.

The testing ground will be Text and Spatial Narration [文本與空間敘] with MA students of Theatre Arts at National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. This course is convened at Shoushan Zoo [壽山動物園] a situation replete with ethical issues that the students need to negotiate in their aim to create intergenerational tours for zoo visitors.