Reimagining Theatre in Education for Transformative Learning in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Human-Centred Pedagogical Framework Aligned with NEP 2020 for Future-Ready Education

Abstract

The rapid diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI) into classrooms has intensified debate over what forms of learning genuinely prepare students for an uncertain future. This conceptual paper argues that Theatre in Education (TIE), long valued for cultivating empathy, embodied cognition, and critical reflection, offers a necessary human-centred counterweight to the efficiency-oriented logic of AI-driven instruction. Drawing on transformative learning theory (Mezirow, 1991, 1997), critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970; Boal, 1979), and constructivist learning traditions (Dewey, 1938; Vygotsky, 1978), the paper synthesises recent empirical and policy literature on drama pedagogy and generative AI in education, following a narrative-synthesis methodology, to propose an integrated Human-Centred Pedagogical Framework. The framework positions embodied theatrical practice, critical-reflective dialogue, and AI-augmented scaffolding as complementary rather than competing pedagogical resources. Three tables and three figures a comparative synthesis of pedagogical postures, a summary of key empirical studies, a policy-alignment matrix, a framework diagram, a competency-comparison visualisation, and a process model for teaching AI ethics through applied theatre -illustrate how the framework addresses gaps left by purely technological or purely traditional approaches. The paper concludes with practical implications for curriculum design, teacher preparation, and future research, arguing that future-ready education must deliberately safeguard embodied, relational, and reflective learning as AI becomes ubiquitous.

Introduction

This paper proposes a Human-Centred Pedagogical Framework that combines Theatre in Education (TIE) with generative AI to address the changing needs of education. Its central argument is that AI can provide computational support, personalised feedback, and information access, but education must deliberately preserve uniquely human abilities such as empathy, critical thinking, creativity, ethical judgement, collaboration, and perspective-taking.

The paper identifies Theatre in Education—including role-play, process drama, forum theatre, and mantle-of-the-expert—as a strong approach for developing these human capabilities. Theatre requires learners to embody different perspectives, interact socially, improvise, make decisions, and reflect on their experiences. These characteristics align with transformative learning, constructivist/experiential learning, and critical pedagogy, particularly the theories of Mezirow, Dewey, Vygotsky, Freire, and Boal.

Key points

• Problem: Generative AI is rapidly transforming education, while traditional education can remain overly focused on content transmission and standardised assessment.
• Need: Students increasingly require analytical and creative thinking, empathy, leadership, collaboration, ethical reasoning, and AI literacy.
• Role of theatre: TIE provides an embodied, social and experiential learning environment that encourages perspective-taking, creativity, empathy, confidence, communication and critical reflection.
• Evidence: Reviewed studies report improvements in theory of mind, collaboration, confidence, participation, empathy, active listening, creativity and professional identity through theatre-based learning.
• Benefits of AI: AI can support personalised feedback, research, content generation, practice, simulations and access to learning resources.
• Risks of AI: Overdependence may weaken critical thinking and learner agency, while AI-generated information can be biased or unreliable. There are also concerns about academic integrity, equity and homogenisation of student thinking.
• Methodology: The paper is a conceptual study based on narrative literature synthesis, combining research on transformative/critical learning, TIE, and generative AI in education. It is not a PRISMA-based systematic review or meta-analysis.
• Proposed framework: The Human-Centred Pedagogical Framework has three interconnected pillars:
  1. Embodied human learning – theatre, role-play, process drama and forum theatre.
  2. Critical-reflective capacity – discussion, debriefing, reflection and critical consciousness.
  3. AI-augmented scaffolding – AI used for research, feedback, simulations and learning support under teacher supervision.

Conclusion

This paper set out to answer a pressing question for contemporary education: how can learners benefit from generative AI\'s computational power without sacrificing the embodied, relational, and ethical capacities that remain distinctly human? The argument developed is that Theatre in Education (TIE), far from being peripheral enrichment, offers one of the most theoretically grounded and empirically supported answers to this question. The theoretical foundations examined, Mezirow\'s transformative learning theory, the constructivist traditions of Dewey, Vygotsky, and Bruner, and the critical pedagogy of Freire and Boal, converge on a single insight: durable, perspective-changing learning requires learners to be emotionally unsettled, socially scaffolded, and narratively engaged, not merely informed. Theatre operationalises all three conditions at once, creating the “disorienting dilemmas” that trigger reflection while embedding understanding in lived, and social narrative. The empirical literature reinforces this, linking drama-based pedagogy to measurable gains in empathy, perspective-taking, collaboration, and confidence, competencies that remain resistant to automation. Crucially, this paper does not treat AI as an adversary to theatre pedagogy but as a tool whose value depends on how it is positioned within the learning architecture. Generative AI offers real affordances, including personalisation, accessibility, and feedback at scale, alongside serious risks, including homogenised thinking, weakened critical reasoning, and unequal institutional readiness. Emerging international human-centred AI frameworks confirm that the real challenge is not whether to adopt AI, but how to ensure it augments rather than displaces human judgement. The Human-Centred Pedagogical Framework proposed here responds to this challenge through three interlocking pillars: embodied learning through theatre, critical-reflective capacity through structured debrief, and AI-augmented scaffolding used instrumentally under teacher supervision. This architecture treats technology and embodiment as complementary rather than competing, positioning the integrated approach to outperform both purely traditional and AI-dominant instruction across digital literacy, empathy, ethical reasoning, creativity, and collaboration alike. The applied extension, AI Ethics through Theatre, demonstrates the framework\'s practical relevance. By having learners embody stakeholders in real AI dilemmas, such as engineers, executives, affected citizens, and regulators, and using forum-theatre techniques to freeze, reflect, and reframe these enactments, students gain a felt understanding of ethical complexity that a case study alone cannot replicate. The framework is also directly implementable within India\'s policy landscape. Its alignment with NEP 2020, across holistic learning, art integration, twenty-first-century skills, reduced rote learning, socio-emotional education, curricular flexibility, teacher capacity-building, Indian Knowledge Systems, and competency-based assessment, shows that it offers a concrete mechanism for realising commitments NEP 2020 has already articulated, translated into actionable recommendations around hybrid models, teacher training, inclusive design, and assessment reform. Certain limitations remain: the framework is conceptual rather than empirically tested, and real-world implementation will face constraints of teacher confidence, curriculum time, and institutional support that pedagogical design alone cannot resolve. Ultimately, this paper argues that the future of education lies not in choosing between AI and embodied pedagogy, but in deliberately sequencing them so each compensates for what the other cannot provide. As AI reshapes classrooms and civic life, reimagining theatre as core educational infrastructure, rather than peripheral activity, may prove one of the most important pedagogical decisions education systems make this decade, warranting urgent empirical validation.

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Copyright

Copyright © 2026 Senapati Nayak, Chandrashekhar Vazalwar, Sambit Kumar Padhi. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.