The Citizenship Debate and Theatre for Young People in Contemporary Scotland

Abstract

In this article Adrienne Scullion reviews the citizenship debate in education policy within contemporary – and specifically post-devolution – Scotland. She identifies something of the impact that this debate has had on theatre-making for children and young people, with a particular focus on projects that are participatory in nature. Her key examples are drawn from TAG Theatre Company's ‘Making the Nation’ project, a major three-year initiative that sought to engage children and young people throughout Scotland in ideas around democracy, politics, and government. Revisiting a classic cultural policy stand-off between instrumental and aesthetic outcomes, she asks whether a policy-sanctioned emphasis on process, transferable skills, and capacity building limits the potential for theatre projects to develop other kinds of theatre skills, such as critical reading and/or spectatorship. With its emphasis on participatory projects rather than plays for children and young people, the article complements her earlier essay, ‘“And So This Is What Happened”: War Stories in New Drama for Children’, in NTQ 84 (November 2005). Adrienne Scullion teaches in the Department of Theatre, Film, and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow.