Browsing by Author "Ijäs, Karolina"

The purpose of this study is to describe the interest in drama education in Swedish-speaking kindergartens and pre-schools in Helsinki. This study also researches different drama- and theatre performers’ thoughts about the use of drama and theatre with young children. The theoretic background describes the appearance of drama education and child theatre, the concepts of drama, drama education and theatre. The field of drama is explained. The learning possibilities when using drama and theatre are discussed. The main research method is qualitative interview; one kindergarten teacher, one drama pedagogue, and one actor were interviewed. The study also contains a small quantitative survey, which was answered by 26 persons working in Swedish-speaking kindergartens and pre-schools in Helsinki. The result of the study shows an interest in drama education, among just few persons. Drama education can therefore be seen as a special interest of few pedagogues. The result also reveals obvious advantages and disadvantages drama performers experience using drama and theatre with young children. The advantages are for instance that drama and theatre provide a possibility to complete experience, a “flow-state” may be reached, you get the opportunity to pay attention to the children’s opinions and you instruct in a better way using drama activity. Social skills and self-development improve and what you learn from drama and theatre is considered meaningful. The disadvantage is the children’s young age. Children have trouble concentrating and using abstract thinking. They also have lack of experience in drama and theatre. These factors may lead to confusion. Other disadvantages are uncertainty regarding the drama method teacher-in-role, difficulties in building up an appropriate drama-process and also balancing between chaos and structure.