This article is based upon research into a participatory Theatre in Education (TiE) programme that toured the West Midlands in 2009, funded by the UK's PREVENT initiative intended to counter the radicalisation of young British nationals by extremist political groups. The article provides a summary of the TiE programme and then presents…

In the United Kingdom, curricular music education has seen two main waves of development and is in the process of shaping a third. Ideas from the second wave have maintained theoretical dominance to the present day, despite the concerns expressed by some about their practical implementation. This paper suggests that problems with the…

Following the devastating result of the May 2015 general election in the UK, the Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home organised "Compassion is dissent: Manifesto Slam." It put out an open call for participants, asking them to bring a three-minute manifesto as means of admission to the event. Here, the Institute showcases…

Caste, and awareness of it, have been a persistent, though changing, feature of South Asian communities' experience in the UK. In twenty-first century Britain the issue of caste has come to the fore and has been hotly contested, in relation to equality legislation. In this wider context, the present article maps some of caste's historical…

This paper discusses a project that used comedy workshops to explore the humour of autistic teenagers, focusing the discussion around three traits often -- and negatively -- associated with autism. The paper will then point to ways of rethinking these traits, and argue that doing so opens up a space for considering the aesthetics of comedy on the…

This paper will explore the effect that creative, non-traditional uses of audio description (AD) have on the audience during a performance, and how they trouble normative understandings of aesthetics and representation. This will be done by analysing two pieces created by Extant Theatre, the UK's only professional theatre company of visually…

An in-depth, longitudinal, idiographic study examined the impact of theatre and drama involvement on marginalised young people. Semi-structured interviews, at three separate time points over 2 years, were conducted with four young people (15-21 years of age) involved in a theatre project. Interpretative phenomenological analysis suggested that…

Since the establishment of Acting Studies, movement has always been a part of actor training. In the current vocational training institutions in the UK, movement for actors covers a wide range of subjects, including dance, somatics and movement practices. The aim of this research was to collect information about the dance techniques considered…

This article, originally presented at "Discourse, Power and Resistance" in April 2014, draws on my current research, within the national Shakespeare Schools' Festival programme, exploring emerging issues of autonomy and power. Theatre education projects have been positioned as an emancipatory endeavour, often drawing on the rhetoric of…

For over two decades, there has been a progressive emergence of Shakespeare-focussed, performance-based programmes intended for use as criminal rehabilitation in the USA. Prison based criminal retribution, though historically prevalent, remains controversial. Although it is still used as a common method for rehabilitation, evidence demonstrates…

This article shares the author's research focusing on the facilitation of acting students with dyslexia in actor-training. For some individuals with dyslexia the translation of the written text into image-based symbols using technological modalities can play a crucial role to access and make concrete the meaning of the words; in this case…

With this issue, "Research in Drama Education" (RiDE) continues its occasional series of short informational pieces on archives in the field of drama and theatre education and applied theatre and performance. Each instalment includes summaries of one or more collections of significant material in the field. Over time, this will build in…

The transfer of disability history research to new generation audiences is crucial to allow lessons from the past to impact the future inclusion and equality agenda. As today's children are the policy makers and the legislators of tomorrow, it is important for them to have opportunities to engage with disability life story narratives to understand…

This article explores an eight-month community theatre project with young people for whom English is a second language. Working as a creative practitioner facilitating young people to explore their personal stories of transition to the UK, the drama therapist discovered comedy to be an important and poignant vehicle for expression of the emotional…

Open Stages is Britain's biggest amateur theatre project, a hugely ambitious scheme to bring the professional and amateur theatre worlds together. It is a learning project but, as the Royal Shakespeare Company's Ian Wainwright tells this author, it is not only the amateurs who are learning. Wainwright states that the amateur and professional…