Wellbeing education (WE) is increasingly offered among secondary schools internationally to promote the physical, social, emotional and mental health of young people. Current and emerging evidence proposes that scope exists for the enhancement of universal WE, and that arts-based approaches have significant potential for school programmes in…

'Why study the arts at school?' This book offers a fresh perspective on this question. Informed by rigorous research, the book argues that the arts help young people to develop key skills, knowledge and practices that support them to become both critical appreciative audiences and socially engaged cultural producers. Drawing on a three-year study…

When using theatre as an educational tool many artist teachers spend unnecessary time on the artistic product, and forget that the transformational process is where the focus should be.

The purpose of this study was to describe music teacher professional development (PD) in the United States and to chart potential differences between the experiences of music teachers, other arts teachers (visual art, theater, dance), and teachers in low-stakes (natural and social sciences) and high-stakes (math, English language arts) academic…

Teaching artists typically work as solo agents, without the comradery of a like-minded community. After a year of focus groups, teaching observations, and conversations with school and arts administrators, we identified a need for experienced teaching artists to have a chance to reflect upon, renew, and reconsider their teaching practices with…

At the beginning of the 2020 pandemic, I grew concerned and also curious about how theatre educators would transition theatre and drama instruction to an online platform. I began a research study interviewing theatre artists while they shifted their formerly in-person summer camps to virtual spaces. One of those instructors, Flannery, was…

Social-emotional learning (SEL) has become one of the fastest growing movements in education. However, while many teachers acknowledge the value of SEL, research shows that comparatively few educators feel prepared to incorporate it into their classrooms, and that current school culture emphasizes academics over SEL. This qualitative study…

"Fracturing and Re-Membering" is a performative mapping combining critical autoethnography and verbatim theatre that re-presents the entanglement of the fragmented and fractured work of teaching, professional development, and research. It draws on data from professional development sessions of a critical literacy and creative drama…

An interview with Shawn Kinley, teacher and performer of improvisational theatre, whose work has taken him to 52 countries across five continents over a 30-year career. His diverse teaching experience includes working with scientists, opera companies, the military, family therapists, and more. Shawn shares his thoughts about the need for the…

Teacher attrition is most prevalent among novice teachers and occurs largely as a result of poor job satisfaction. Content-specific mentoring interventions demonstrate effectiveness in combating novice teacher attrition, but are inaccessible by visual and performing arts teachers due to their status as one-person departments within school…

In an attempt to bridge the gap between the distinct pedagogical strategies often employed in the respective fields of song and dance, this study investigates how collaborative teaching and dialogue can serve as a starting point in finding new teaching and learning methods. This pilot study involving three teacher-researchers and three students…

This study analyzes "Act Out Justice" (AOJ), a youth theatre for social change initiative of Orlando Repertory Theatre and the University of Central Florida. Employing AOJ's model of reflective collaborative inquiry (Horn et al., 2020), this article dramatizes the practice of responding to one's own work. Through narrative and dialogical…

The COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world and arts education. Performing arts classes across the world were labeled as deadly activities and banned for in-person instruction and experiences in schools and communities for months. Strict mandates were enforced for masking students and social distancing. Restrictions for talking, singing, playing…

New Zealand has its educational roots in 19th and 20th century British educational systems with close similarities between English and New Zealand secondary school education structures. In the last two decades, however, secondary school education in both countries has experienced multiple and sometimes radical reforms. Educational policy has…

A team of literacy, science, and theatre educators have been working to engage children in an urban public school system in the United States through embodied performances, where students embody and dramatise science ideas. This study focuses on one fourth-grade classroom when instruction was done remotely due to Covid-19. Children in the class…