Makten att göra sin röst hörd - synsätt i mötet mellan teater och skola

Sammanfattning: AbstractIn the following text we analyse different perspectives in a meeting between a theatreand a visiting school class from grade six in the Swedish Primary School, in order toinvestigate the conditions for children’s participation and for making children’s ownvoices heard in professional theatres. Though it is common for Swedish theatre artists totry to understand and interpret children’s perspectives, it is rare for children to be giventhe opportunity to show their own perspectives in professional theatres in Sweden(Davet 2011 p. 18). The authors of this text have their theoretical base in a socioculturalperspective that gives that learning and creation of meaning and purpose takes place in asocial and cultural context (Vygotskij 1978). In the analysis of our material we havefound Feiwel Kupferberg’s (2009) theory on different creative regimens and Robert A.Harts (1992) descriptions of children’s participation useful. This is a casestudy and our primary method is qualitative interviews. Our informants are four pupils,one teacher, one theatre pedagogue and two theatre artists. The result shows that theartistic creative regimen and the pedagogical creative regimen are different and this hasan impact on how our informants approach the meeting between school and theatre, aswell as on how they think about making children’s voices heard in theatres. Formal andinformal demands and expectations present obstacles to working with children’sparticipation in a co-operation between school and theatre. The social reception after thetheatre performance has been an important part of the participating pupils’ experience.The pupils show enthusiasm about the thought of expressing themselves through theatretogether with teachers and theatre artists. We come to the conclusion that there is a needfor a change in professional roles among all the adult participants in this meeting if theywant to make children’s participation a reality. For this to happen they need to take itupon themselves to use their different professional skills to make children’s ownprojects come to life.Key words: children’s participation, children’s voices, creative regimen, democracy,radical aesthetics, theatre.