Drama Boreale - Åbo Akademi

schools outside of compulsory education. An intertextual resonance can be identified in
the discussions - to a trend among pupils in vocational studies at upper secondary level
to interrupt their studies and leave school without a formal exam. The voices of the
pupils can have an impact on how arts subjects will be treated in the reform of teacher
education, because of the popularity of these subjects. Furthermore, almost 20% of today
´s pupils leave secondary school without sufficient reading skills. Many of these go
directly from secondary education to social support systems and never take their place in
the workforce in Norwegian society. One disturbing statistic presented recently is that
the workforce in Norway seems to be the most sick of all countries studied.
The UNESCO-report The WOW-factor (Bamford, 2006) has also been discussed widely
in Norway. Ann Bamford’s central point is that the arts subjects can promote learning,
but this seems to happen most if the teaching is given by teachers with competence in the
arts subject in question. Also the Norwegian drama and theatre milieu is vulnerable in
facing educational trends which do not support arts education as one key learning area in
school among other key learning areas. One possible alternative is to strengthen the
indistinct voices and to define evidence in a way that takes into account learning in arts
and through art as a field of knowledge.
Conclusion
The development of subject studies has in Norway predominantly taken place within
teacher education colleges, and in universities within arts faculties. The underlining of
the subject as an arts subject is in line with the Finnish definition of the subject, but the
Norwegian argumentation is more based on the substance of the subject than on the
impact of it. The two texts are distinctly different in arguing in the first text (from
Finland) for a subject status in basic education, and in the second text (from Norway)
arguing for the continuation of a system already in place with subject studies in drama in
teacher education. One remark regarding the Finnish text is that if theatre art should be
included in basic education from 2011, there is no developed competence in theatre art
teaching that could cover the whole of basic education. In Norway this competence has
been developed during a period of almost 40 years. One trend in Norway as well as in
Finland is the introduction of positions in arts education as well as professorships and
senior lecturers. This is a rather new phenomenon, and the result of this more open arts
educational focus is yet to be seen. The picture as a whole is rather messy; I would
suggest a time out to find the new focus of drama and theatre education in the Nordic
context, based at research already at hand. I would also suggest a Nordic research project
to study the different paths for drama and theatre education, and to possibly bring
together the evidence gained from the substantial body of Nordic drama and theatre in
education research already at hand. The point of this discourse analysis is to show that
there is a choice – and that this choice is about what kind of societal morals that should
be strengthened in individuals and in the community. The practice of drama and theatre
educators matters, it is precious – in form as well as in content.
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