Adolescents' Experimenting with Roles in the context of L.S. Vygotsky's ideas: an Activity-Based Technology "Digital Storytelling Theater"

Abstract

<p>The article is devoted to the elaboration of a new model of drama for adolescents &mdash; &ldquo;Digital Storytelling Theater&rdquo;. The model is based on the idea that the leading activity of adolescence is represented by experimenting with roles, in the framework of which adolescents acquire social roles as a new system of cultural signs. &ldquo;Digital Storytelling Theater&rdquo; allows to create conditions for adolescents&rsquo; experimenting with social and psychological objects (roles, positions, relationships etc.) In this kind of drama adolescents do not only play out roles according to a given scenario but participate in a palette of activities while working on a performance. The elaborated model of drama activity allows to construct the zone of proximal development for adolescents due to two supplementary processes: interiorization and exteriorization. Interiorization is connected with adolescents&rsquo; acquiring new cultural signs &mdash; various social roles and patterns of role behavior. Exteriorization presupposes revealing &mdash; &ldquo;bringing out on the stage&rdquo; &mdash; role contradictions and conflicts, which are profoundly linked with adolescent crisis and to a large extent determine the way how it occurs. The model was elaborated on the basis of the Center for Interdisciplinary research on Contemporary Childhood of MSUPE in 2019-2022 and was tested in 3 different schools in Moscow and in Moscow Region with the participation of 336 adolescents aged from 13 to 15 years.</p>