Human rights and democratic culture in drama teaching: a Greek research study

This paper considers possible interconnections between human rights education (HRE), the Council of Europe’s Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (CDC) and the teaching of drama in Greek primary education. The research was conducted in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, involving 52 prospective drama teachers during their internship semester. The research explores the potential of the CDC Model in providing opportunities for future drama teachers’ self-reflection, classroom observation, and teaching structure. Data was collected through reflective journals and was subjected to thematic analysis. The findings show that participants made conscious attempts to engage in self-reflection and classroom observation through the lens of CDC, on multiple levels; they also adopted this framework when planning and facilitating their class interventions, taking into account the classes’ observed CDC levels. Their observations and conduct suggested strong connections between various dimensions of HRE, the CDC Model, and drama teaching in the primary setting.