Chris Summers’ unique PhD recognised with prestigious award

Chris Summers’ PhD, Floodlights, Flare-ups & Frameworks: Teacher/Playwright (re)staging ‘Pedagogy’, ‘Curriculum’ & ‘Assessment’ has been awarded the 2024 Distinguished Dissertation Award by the American Alliance for Theatre and Education.

Chris undertook his PhD at Deakin University with supervisors Dr Jo Raphael and Deakin Distinguished Professor Julianne Moss. His project interrogated his overlapping identities as a former secondary school teacher and award-winning playwright to dramatically investigate the structural inequities of public secondary education in Australia today.

The unique aspect of Chris’ PhD was his use of playwriting as research.

“Jo and Julianne were big believers in my playwriting ability and my interest in using playwriting as research. They saw playwriting as a distinct component of a different qualitative study and had faith in me doing something quite different (within current arts-based educational research),” Chris said.

“I wanted to humanise, dramatise and re-interpret challenges in the public education system through a theatrical lens. These are challenges that we are all too aware of, but frequently consign to either the ‘too hard’ or ‘too theoretical’ baskets. I wanted to offer different access points for how we might understand and experience these issues, separate from traditional written/published (and frequently barely read) educational research.”

The American Alliance for Theatre and Education, one of the most recognised arts education organisations in the world, works to ensure that every young person experiences quality theatre arts in their lives provided by proficient, talented artists and educators. AATE serves more than a million students in 48 states in the USA and 19 countries worldwide.

The AATE has also invited Chris to create a 20 minute digital presentation based on the thesis and submit to the highly-regarded Youth Theatre Journal.

Chris is a Lecturer in Arts Education – Drama Education at The University of Melbourne.

Chris Summers