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Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and

Performance
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Editorial

John Somers

To cite this Article Somers, John(2000) 'Editorial', Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and

Performance, 5: 2, 157 161

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Research in Drama Education, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2000

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Editorial
The Editorial Board of this journal meets twice a year, just after an issue of the journal
has been published. Apart from those that concern the nuts and bolts of journal
routines such as the reviewing process, the most valuable discussions take place around
the articles that have just been published. We discuss the positive things about the
articles and also focus on the issues that emerge as pointers to how we can improve the
quality and relevance of the journals content. At our last meeting, we drew some
satisfaction from the fact that sixty-six articles have been included in the rst ten issues
of the journal. It is some measure of RIDEs usefulness that it is increasingly quoted in
the work we review, and writing in other journals and books. So far, three hundred and
twenty articles have been submitted, so the publication rate is around one for every ve
received.
No article appears unless it gets approval following blind review by two experienced
reviewers and not one has been accepted without some redrafting. We try to encourage
authors by sending quite detailed feedback on their writing. One article in this issue, for
example, went through three redrafts before publication. We know that authors value
the care we take in not publishing uncritically or issuing curt rejection notices. We hope
that our sympathetic reviewing processes will encourage submissions from new writers
and those whose rst language is not English.
Several issues emerged in our last Board discussion. One concerns research that is
based on and in practice. We are keen that articles we receive show evidence that
researchers have interrogated practice, not just uncritically described it. Too much of
the work we receive displays strong advocacy with little supporting evidence. It also
dees the laws of research and probability to claim always that all research works. It
might be refreshing to receive the occasional article that describes a project that brings,
as one Board member expressed it not so good news, or even the bad news of failure.
Whilst realising that, very often, research should be based on the straightforward
practical work of day-to-day practice, we ask researchers not to elevate simple practical
work to a status it does not deserve. Sometimes the research writings and resultant
claims made, constitute a top-heavy structure that the practice is not robust enough to
support.
We obviously hope to receive articles that are relevant to the elds covered by this
journal. We are aware of the presssure on academics to publish and this leads some
authors to spray their work around in the hope of hitting a target. We ask those who
are contemplating submission to look carefully at the areas in which we deal. Simply,
these can be dened as those where drama and theatre are used in educational contexts.
Most articles, therefore, refer to drama and theatre that is applied in a variety of
situations, usually with the express intention of bringing about change. That still means
that the journal can cover quite eclectic interests Prison Theatre, Theatre for DevelopISSN 13569783 print; 1470-112X online/ 00/ 02015705

2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd

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158 Editorial
ment and Dramatherapy, for instance, in addition to Drama and Theatre in Education,
but we do not publish, for example, articles to do with dramaturgy or wider theatre
theory. If you are unsure, please remember that I am very willing to comment on an
abstract or outline for an article before the author gets down to writing it. In the last
few weeks, I have had very productive e-mail discussions with three authors who
wanted to use that service, and it is to be hoped that better articles will result.
I would also like to receive articles from postgraduate students. At the journals
outset, we made a policy decision to dedicate a part of the journal to the publication of
such work, but we have not been overwhelmed by submissions. The published postgraduate author receives two complimentary issues of the journal, and his/her name is
carried in a permanent honours board in the journal. I would be grateful if supervisors
could draw this to the attention of postgraduate students.
I described in the last editorial the new electronic services offered by this journals
publishers. One service that is absolutely free is the ability to have the contents page of
a forthcoming issue sent to you by e-mail before publication. This allows you to buy
copies of individual articles that are of interest. The service is not restricted to this
publication, and individuals may request the content pages of any Taylor and Francis
journal. Details of this service can be obtained by sending an e-mail to
SARA@ tandf.co.uk with the word info in the body of the message. For other services,
see the publishers home page at: , http:// www.tandf.co.uk/ journals .
I get an increasing number of e-mails from students who are in search of material to
support their dissertation writing. They are often unaware of this journals content, or
of the existence of other journals in the eld. We owe it to our students to ensure they
can access the latest research. I realise that academic libraries in many countries
(including the UK) are cutting back on journal subscriptions, but please ensure as far as
you can that students have access to relevant journals by encouraging your institutions
library to take out subscriptions. Taylor and Francis have agreed to adopt an ethical
pricing system similar to that used for the Exeter conference, with differential rates for
countries depending on the relative spending power, and this should assist in making the
journal more affordable. The details of this scheme are being nalised.
In an article in issue 2.2 of RIDE, John OToole made a plea for writing that ensured
the ideas embedded in it were accessible. I have since made an argument for elegant
writing. Too many authors still equate academic excellence with the number of
references cited and the maximum language impenetrability. If you are submitting to
this journal, please look carefully at your manuscript before posting it to ensure that the
meanings are clear, the article is jargon free and that all references are justied. On this
last point, it is rarely necessary to provide references for well-known and generally
accepted claims. If you want to provide some sources that can furnish useful references
for the less experienced reader, then an endnote can be less intrusive than a full reference
in the text. In the interests of clarity, the Board has decided that, normally, the limit for
the number of references will be twenty.
Our Review section covers books and conferences. We are conscious that we serve an
international readership and are therefore keen to include accounts of conferences and
books from countries other than those where English is a rst language. Please e-mail
Joe Winston (booksaeraz@ dredd.csv.warwick.ac.uk) and Helen Nicholson (conferences, with suggestions for suitable contributions.

Editorial

159

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Contents of this issue

One of the exciting worldwide developments in our eld is the increasing use of Theatre
and drama in quasi-therapeutic situations. Shulamith Lev-Aladgems article examines
what she terms carnivalesque enactment as a special mode of playful acting. In the
rst, theoretical section of the article, the author identies and denes the World-Upside-Down principle incorporating play and role reversal common to traditions that
thrive on the inversion of rules, especially those to do with status. This examination is
rooted in medieval and Renaissance carnival. There follows a study of a students
participatory project in a childrens hospital where carnivalesque enactment is employed to humanise hospital expierience, and to empower the child patients involved.
Rather uniquely its relation to my earlier comment about not so good news, the author
states that the rst performance did not work. This stimulated the students to re-examine the approaches they were using, and to adapt them until, in their third attempt, they
found something that did work, going on to rene the style in a fourth performance.
This article is important in that it goes beyond the cheer them up use of theatre to a
considered use of laughter and role reversal in theatre as therapy. It is also useful model
on how to co-operate with other professionals found in the applied drama venuein
this case, nurses and doctors.
Joyce Wilkinson addresses an issue that has attracted diverse research effortthe
effect of arts experience on a students showing in other curriculum areas, in this case,
literacy. Following a favourable, major 1994 Canadian report on arts education, artists
and teachers combined to organise and deliver an integrated arts programme that was
expected to impact on childrens learning, and especially, in its early stages, literacy. A
research team observed and evaluated the beginning period of this project over a period
of ve months. Rather unfashionably now to UK eyes, the programme required a
child-centred approach with the arts placed at the centre of the curriculum. This, as
Wilkinson points out required a focus on the childs needs as opposed to the artists
ego. Notwithstanding the difculty some of the artists had in tuning in to children
and to educational concepts considered fundamental to effective learning, the outcomes
of such a programme were difcult to measure. Progress in literacy was noticed at
different age levels and it is thought that that achieved by younger children was more
directly attributable to the arts programme. Potentially misleading data are subjected to
proper multiple interpretation in an attempt to avoid unwarranted claims. The analysis
is thorough and realistic, although evidence that would prove the relationship of general
educational progress with arts experience is, as is always to be expected, tantalisingly
absent. Nevertheless, the Millennium Bureau of Canada committed 250,000 to the
extension of the learning through the arts model. The work relates closely to the July
2000 conference held in Los Angeles which examines meta analyses of research exploring the relationship between arts education and academic outcomes, a review of which
will appear in issue 6.1.
The article by Tony Jackson, editor of the book Learning Through Theatre investigates the nature of the theatricality embedded in two living history projects. Unusually,
the research contrasts a programme from the USA with one from the UK. Jackson is
wary of claiming a comprehensive evaluation, stating that the paper should be seen as
the rst stage of a more sophisticated enquiry. The articles strength is its examination

160 Editorial
of the two projects in terms of the processes by which each attempts to ensure that
education through theatrical (or para-theatrical) means takes place. He is acutely
aware of the drawbacks of poor theatre in this context, arguing that it:

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can dilute, distort, even sabotage the educational intent of the curator.
Dramatisation tends to impose narrative structure on history, tidying it up,
reducing it to cause and effect. And there is the further danger of trivialising
in the process of popularising, and making fun out of fashions, behaviours and
beliefs different from our own.
After raising the issue of whether there is such a thing in social history as historical
accuracy, Jackson ends by arguing for dramatic experience as empathic awareness,
provoking reexivity and puzzlement about the lives, beliefs and struggles of people of
an age fundamentally different from our own. The article makes a valuable contribution to an understanding of the burgeoning heritage theatre industry.
Bill Roper and David Davis present a fascinating critique of the work of Howard
Gardner, distinguished Harvard scholar and originator of the concept of multiple
intelligences. In reaching an understanding of the how the mind is continuously and
actively working at understanding the world, the authors choose to focus on the
oppositional views of Piaget (as, they claim, espoused by Gardner) and Vygotsky. Roper
and Davis look at Gardners theories in relation to Drama in Education, something, they
claim, he does not cover as a result of his concentration on music and the visual arts.
They end by claiming that Gardners essentially Kantian philosophical and psychological frameworks give rise to a very conservative and rigid conception of the art forms
and their relation to knowledge and development, preferring Vygotskys frameworks
which they claim have more to offer us in understanding Drama in Education learning.
Chris Banelds article might at rst glance seem to lie outside the purlieu of this
journal, dealing as it does with adopting more rigorous psychological languages in
acting research. He sets this discussion, however, in the context of the prevailing theme
of the 1999 Exeter research conferencewhat we have to learn from other disciplines.
He spends the rst part of the article reviewing some of the psychological languages
currently in use by contemporary, non psychologist writers on acting and the second
half in evaluating the work of psychologists Helga and Tony Noice who have brought
a more specialised expertise to this same topic. Baneld ends by claiming that the use
of psychology approaches can illuminate aspects of drama practice, with the caveat that
we require healthy scepticism and rigorous thinking if we are to avoid drawing
simplistic conclusions.
By referring to drama used in adult education work, Anna-Marie Taylor investigates
the connection between the ctional and the real in the development of selfhood.
Following an examination of the thinking of a number of key practitioners and
theoreticians, she shows how dramatic experience can counter the tendency for community fragmentation and the individual risk experienced by post-industrial and
post-modern inhabitants of her part of Wales.
In Viewpoints, Penny Bundy uses the articles by James Thompson and Michael
Balfour previously published in RIDE as a springboard for consideration of the sources

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Editorial

161

of, and relationship between, anger and aggression. Bundy takes an interesting look at
claims regarding the arousal of anger and aggressive response before looking at the ways
that drama intervention might work. She argues that a drama-based programme
premised on a pro-feminist approach offers opportunities to explore the attitudes which
underpin behaviour rather than being designed to offer opportunities to practise new
behaviours. The article makes a valuable contribution to this important area of applied
drama.
Tim Prentki describes international links between his MA Theatre for Development
course in the UK and the Universities of Dhaka and Khulna, Bangladesh. Students on
courses that deal with theatre forms whose most interesting examples are located
overseas, often suffer from lack of experience in those countries, and especially in the
way that practitioners employ indigenous theatrical forms in the service of developmental agendas. It is a mark of the developing internationalism of the drama education
world that Bangladeshi and British universities are now engaged in this way. Prentki
explores the tendency of TfD to work with the victims rather than the oppressor,
counselling that theatre that intends to create change must move beyond therapy into
social action.
Whilst from some parts of the world I receive news of drama education courses
coming under threat, especially in higher education, in other areas it is being introduced
to new school curricula that are designed to replace the teacher dominated/transmission
of knowledge models currently in use. Shu-hwa Jung writes about the situation and
impending change in Taiwan where a new curriculum for Arts and Humanities will be
implemented in 2001. I have a feeling that much of the fascination with drama and its
ways of learning stem from its pedagogic style which, to a teacher who is used to
traditional forms of education, through its emphasis on student centred learning appears
revolutionary. It would be good to hear from Shu-hwa again in a few years time when
the new curriculum is bedded in.
James Thompson uses poetic form to comment on a disturbing experience of
performance at a conference. Quite a part from the imagery it generates, it raises the
interesting question of whether a poem or other aesthetic response to experience should
stand-alone or whether it requires qualication such as the references and endnotes here
provided by Thompson.
JOHN SOMERS
University of Exeter, UK