“Believing in people so they believe in themselves and what they dare to create and offer the world.”
At The Oxford School of Drama (OSD), Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) are values we work to deeply embed in everything we do—from our curriculum and casting practices to student support, staff development, and institutional governance. EDI shapes our creative ethos, our pedagogy, and our responsibility to the industry.
Our artistic and educational practices are grounded in dramaturgy that centres on experimentation and exploration of the human condition through engaging with equity, cultural sensitivity, and critical self-awareness. We train actors not only to enter the industry but to reshape it—with tools that honour diverse histories, identities, and artistic methodologies. Our learning communities develop their collaborative practices through a model that embraces diverse perspectives and ways of learning.
OSD Core Values:
Creativity
Collaboration
Ethics
Fulfillment
Innovation
Creative | Collaborative | Ethical | Fulfilling | Innovative
OSD Core Values:
Creativity
Collaboration
Ethics
Fulfillment
Innovation
Focus Areas 2025–2028:
Casting, Materials, Reflexivity, Critical and Cultural Studies and Dramaturgy with Collaboration
Casting
Casting is approached through intersectional equity-led principles. We promote inclusive and adaptive representation focused across intersections of age, disability, gender, race, socio-economic factors, and neurodiversity. Our commitment is to ensure that all students have the opportunity to develop their artistic voice and be seen for the full range of their potential, not preconditioned by unconscious bias or limited by convention, but with curiosity engaging with heritage, traditions and innovations.
Materials and learning content
Materials and learning content are designed with accessibility, cultural responsiveness, and an intentional commitment to representation across diverse voices, lived experiences, and artistic forms. This ensures all students see themselves reflected in the work and are empowered to challenge, question, and contribute from their unique perspectives. We support neurodivergent learners and make adjustments to physical and digital resources to increase accessibility – we recognise and understand this to be an interactive process.
Reflexivity
Reflexivity is embedded across teaching, feedback, and governance. It is a plank of the Equitable Collaboration Framework. Students are invited into active dialogue about their learning and their needs. Elected student reps, pastoral support, and transparent feedback loops ensure all voices are heard and respected. Reflexivity is also modelled by staff, with regular training in a range of diverse approaches to inclusive practices.
Critical and cultural studies
Critical and cultural studies nourish every aspect of our curriculum. Students engage with intersectionality and post-intersectionality, decolonialist thought, and diverse feminist theories not as abstract ideas, but as working tools. This equips our students to challenge norms, build solidarity, and create braver, more equitable artistic worlds. OSD is committed to providing an education where creativity is inseparable from ethics, and inclusion is foundational.
Dramaturgy with Collaboration
Dramaturgy with Collaboration at OSD serves as both a creative and pedagogical strategy. Students learn to interpret, question, and reimagine texts and performance contexts that reflect a range of cultural, political, and lived realities. It is a method for thinking critically and acting justly, as part of a conscious practice.
Together, these focuses provide a coherent and responsive approach to actor training—one aligned with arts education and cultural industry standards for inclusive excellence. We invite students to become resourceful, reflexive, and culturally conscious actors and artists.
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