Looking for change: Towards breaking down ‘habitus’

This article draws on the potential of a dramatic text or pre-text to increase the impact on participants. Impact is defined here as changes of perception and expectations – as an agent for breaking down habitus, which is a system of social reproduction that explains how discourses and reiterated options are kept and counter-arguments are rejected. The possibility of change requires remapping the parameters of place, identity, history and power. Through this, a teacher may lead students to cross borders in terms of knowledge. Drama in the curriculum, particularly Dorothy Heathcote’s approach, is explored as a way of breaking down habitus and of democratizing differences.