Lisa Stephenson
Reader | Leeds Beckett
Leeds, UNITED KINGDOM
Lisa Stephenson's teaching and research specialism is creative (drama) learning.
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Biography
Dr Lisa Stephenson is a Reader in Creative Pedagogy, in the school of Education, Leeds Beckett University. Lisa’s research and practice focusses on using story/drama/inquiry (drama worldbuilding) to empower learner co-agency, wellbeing and transformative competences. She is Course Leader Creativity Pedagogies and supervises several PhD students and teaches creativities across Initial Teacher Education.
Lisa is founder and director of Story Makers Company, a practice-based research centre which champions creative pedagogies, creative methodologies and co-participatory research with children and young people. Her PhD research demonstrates the way in which drama pedagogy activates children's dispositions for wellbeing, creativity and critical thinking.
Lisa has led several national and international research projects on professional development with teachers and artists, co-creating holistic curriculum and assessment opportunities through her research in areas such as Oracy and communication, collective creativity and emotional literacy. She was principal investigator on a two-year research professional development project with teachers across Bradford, integrating creative pedagogy for Oracy across the curriculum. She was also co-investigator in a Pan-European project creating educational resources to boost children's wellbeing and creativity.
Lisa works extensively with a wide range of artist educators, schools, communities, marginalised young people and cultural organisations, developing research opportunities in areas of social change and intercultural learning through creative pedagogy and story. Her work has fed into the Oracy Commission and OECD Futures of Education policy.
Industry Expertise (4)
Education/Learning
Research
Childcare
Mental Health Care
Areas of Expertise (9)
Wellbeing
Mental Health
Education
Culture
Children
Community
Diversity
Equality and Inclusion
Teaching
Affiliations (1)
- Story Makers Company : Founder and Director
Links (4)
Languages (1)
- English
Media Appearances (3)
Teachers can use drama to bring writing to life for children
The Conversation online
2017-01-13
With prescriptive teaching styles, a test-based culture and an obsession with attainment levels, it’s not surprising that children in the UK are in danger of being put off writing.
2021 Creative Spaces for Wellbeing
The Emotional Curriculum Podcast
2021 In this episode we speak with Lisa Stephenson from Leeds Beckett University about Story Makers Company which aims to use stories to promote diversity and wellbeing in young people.
Race and children’s literature
Talking Race Series
2020 This episode examines the absence of race in children’s literature. Guest interviewer, Dr Emily Zobel Marshall, talks with Darren Chetty and Lisa Stephenson about the reasons why BAME children think stories are about White people and why in a tiny minority of books for primary children feature a BAME character or a BAME protagonist. They discuss the positive role played by the Story Makers project in addressing this absence.
Articles (10)
Story Exchange Project: Empowering pupil voice through drama worldbuilding - Impact Report
Leeds Beckett2024 The Story Exchange project was a 2 year project (2021-2023) co-developed between Bowling Park Primary in Bradford and Story Makers Company, a practice-based research centre, at Leeds Beckett University. Working with artists, teachers and children, cross eight inner city schools. The project focused on co-creating an imaginative and culturally relevant curriculum through drama and storytelling with a focus on oracy, language and verbal and non-verbal communication development with children ages 7-10 years old across schools.
Dispositional learning: Rethinking wellbeing assessment through creative pedagogies
Rethinking Assessment2024 Exploring creative pedagogies and assessment, this article shares research into how dispositional learning and creative practices can reshape educational assessments, fostering wellbeing and creativity among pupils.
Creative Pedagogy as a Practice of Resistance: Charting Artist Educators’ practices within trans-European Education Policy
JasED2023 Creative learning is increasingly being recognised as a crucial part of children’s holistic education. In this paper, we critically explore our experiences as artist-educators working across four differing European countries, namely, England, Iceland, Germany, and Greece in relation to differing educational policy. These experiences of practice are set against educational policy landscapes which have progressively eroded opportunities for young people to engage in the creative arts in education across many European states.
Creative Pedagogy as a Practice of Resistance: Rhizo-textual analysis of Artist Educators’ Practices within Differing European Curriculum Policy Contexts.
Journal for Research in Arts and Sports Education2023 Creative learning is increasingly being recognised as a crucial part of children’s holistic education. In this paper, we critically explore our experiences as artist-educators working across four differing European countries, namely, England, Iceland, Germany, and Greece in relation to differing educational policy. These experiences of practice are set against educational policy landscapes which have progressively eroded opportunities for young people to engage in the creative arts in education across many European states.
Collective creativity and wellbeing dispositions: children's perceptions of learning through drama
Thinking Skills and Creativity2023 At a time of escalating global climate change and political, educational, social, and economic divides, children face uncertainties about their futures. This is set against a rise in poor wellbeing and mental health amongst children. Whilst global organisations such as OECD Learning Compass 2030 and UNESCO Framework for Action 2030, provide normative discourses on the global skills, knowledge and attitudes that should be taught to equip young people to become ‘change agents’, this is yet to be reflected in educational policy in England. Central to addressing empirical gaps in research, is the exploration the impact of children's affective engagement in creative arts learning.
Story making in brave spaces of wilful belonging: co-creating a novel with British-Pakistani girls in primary school
Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance2023 The Story Makers Press is a university-based publisher who focus on making and publishing hybrid stories with children who are underrepresented in literature. This article explores the embodied drama processes used in the co-creation of our third book called ‘Zalfa Emir is Warrior’ with eighteen 10–11-year-old girls from second generation Pakistani heritage.
A pedagogy of professional noticing and co-inquiry: Embedding drama for oracy across the primary curriculum
Impact. Chartered College of Teaching2023 Oral language skills underpin children’s educational success and enhance positive cognitive, social, emotional and life outcomes. However, significant numbers of children struggle to develop competence in speaking and listening, especially children from areas of high economic deprivation (Dobinson and Dockrell, 2021). This is highlighted by the Oracy All-Party Parliamentary Policy Group (APPG), whose reports are advocating a renewed focus on oracy (2020).
A trans‐European perspective on how artists can support teachers, parents and carers to engage with young people in the creative arts
Children & Society2022 Whilst the link between young people's well‐being and the creative arts is strengthening, there is a lack of research which focuses on the roles that artists play to help teachers and parents engage young people in the creative arts. This paper explores the benefits of and barriers to artists working in education in six European countries (England, Iceland, Germany, Greece, Italy and Austria). Using the ‘5A's model of creativity’ and a view of professional development taking place within ‘landscapes of practice’, the data were analysed in order to explain how creativity is operationalised in the different contexts.
Weaving critical hope: story making with artists and children through troubled times
Literacy2022 Re-imagining Home was a collective immersive story response for children ages 7–12 years during Covid curated by artists from The Story Makers Company. This experience focused on connecting children in new ways through the processes of drama and storying. This paper explores the nuanced responses that children and artists negotiated online/offline story spaces as they lived through these experiences.
Releasing the socio‐imagination: children's voices on creativity, capability and mental well‐being
Support for Learning2020
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