With performing arts towards performative pedagogies

5.6.2025 1 Tykkää 0 kommenttia Michaela Bränn

Call for chapter abstracts for the peer-reviewed open access edited book

Editors: Nina Dahl-Tallgren, Kristian Nødtvedt-Knudsen, and Tone Pernille Østern 

This is an invitation to submit an abstract for an application by the above editors for an edited peer-reviewed book. The editors have been invited by a major international publisher to submit an application based on preliminary discussions about the book idea.   

Abstract submission by 15 September 2025 to: nina.dahl-tallgren@uniarts.fi

SMIL – Performing arts as pedagogical possibilities in school – is a development and research project taking place in Finland during 2023-2026.  KUSK – The art of developing competence and knowledge for the future is a development and research project focused on upper-secondary schools in Agder, a region in southern Norway that is taking place during 2025-2027. 

About the SMIL project

About the KUSK project

About the proposed book

This call invites researchers and practitioner-researchers in or outside of the SMIL or KUSK projects to submit an abstract elaborating their work about how the performing arts could be integrated as part of the learning environments from pre-primary to upper-secondary education. We especially, but not exclusively, invite submissions from those performing in arts fields that are not compulsory and independent subjects in schools in a Nordic context: drama and theatre, dance, circus art, and literary art. We invite submissions from within the Nordic countries, as well as from the global community, especially from countries where these performing arts fields perhaps are, or have recently become, subjects or competence areas of their own. What are the successes, challenges, and possibilities experienced with the performing arts in school in those contexts? Research and development projects that have teacher education as their focus are also of interest. Projects that seek to integrate performing arts in education with the goal of strengthening the relationship between performing arts and learning, the development of teaching through performing arts, and research methodologies developed to enhance the design of performative pedagogy in education, are of interest. With the SMIL project, the KUSK project, and with this edited book, we ask:

What do educational designs where the performing arts are included as part of the curriculum look like? What do pupils, teachers, teacher educators, and researchers learn through and withthe performing arts, and how do they experience the learning processes? How can depth in learning and lifelong learning be understood in the arts subjects, or in interdisciplinary arts projects in education? What can a/r/tography as hybrid methodology and performative pedagogy bring to (research with) teaching and learning the arts in different educational contexts?  

Possible themes for chapter submission abstracts can be, but are not limited to: 

• What can the performing arts in a general education learning context enable?  
• What can the performing arts contribute in interdisciplinary and/or cross-sectoral educational contexts? 
• What challenges do artists, teachers, pupils, teacher candidates, and/or teacher educators advocating the performing arts in a general education learning context experience?  
• What educational designs emerge from research and development projects where performing arts in school are key? And how can the emerging pedagogies be described and theorised?  
• How can performing arts innovations in school enhance learning and foster the competencies of creativity and emotional and social well-being in educational settings?  
• How might performing arts innovations in a general education setting provoke and promote critical change and inclusive practices? 
• What can a/r/tography as a hybrid methodology and performative pedagogy offer to (research with) teaching and learning with the performing arts in different educational contexts? 

Deadline for chapter abstract submissions: September 15^th, 2025 

Checklist for submitting abstracts 

• Name(s) of author(s) and institutional affiliation(s) are placed at the top 
• The text is written in Calibri, 11-point font size and 2-line spacing. 
• The content of the abstract must clarify the context, research questions, methodologies, and theoretical perspectives within the edited book’s themes. 
• The content must be an original research contribution to the field. 
• The length of the abstract is a maximum of 300 words. Any references are added (max. half a page). 
• Language ​​accepted is English

About the process: 

• The deadline to submit an abstract to nina.dahl-tallgren@uniarts.fi is 15 September 2025 
• The authors will be notified within 4 weeks about acceptance/rejection of the abstract for the next stage 
• Based on the included abstracts the editors will submit a book application to a major international publisher through invitation by the publisher 
• If the book idea is accepted, the deadline for full chapter submissions will be 15 June 2026.  
• Expected publication of the book is spring 2027. 

Article processing charges 

The open access processing charge will be paid by the editors’ research funding. There will be no charges for the individual authors.  

About the editors:  
Nina Dahl-Tallgren (Phd), is a post-doc researcher at the University of the Arts Helsinki and Åbo Akademi University. She is the head of the research and development project SMIL performing arts in education. 
E-mail: nina.dahl-tallgren@uniarts.fi

Kristian Nødtvedt Knudsen (Phd) is Professor in Drama/Theatre at the Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts, University of Agder. His main research areas are performative research, arts based research and applied drama/theatre. He is the Head of the research group ”Music, Dance, Drama – Interdisciplinary Practices and Educational Discourses” with a focus on arts education in upper secondary schools in Norway. 
E-mail: kristian.n.knudsen@uia.no

Tone Pernille Østern, (Dr. of Arts in Dance) is Professor in Arts Education with a focus on Dance at the Department for Teacher Education at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and Visiting Professor in Dance Education in Contemporary Contexts at Stockholm University of the Arts. She is Editor-in-chief of Dance Articulated. She is the international advisor of the SMIL project.

E-mail: tone.pernille.ostern@ntnu.no