Research topic/Aim: The aim of the study is to contribute to an understanding of how drama, as part of the formal learning area in Icelandic compulsory education, is implemented by drawing up a cultural portrait of the situation. The purpose is thus to contribute to more knowledge and to an increased understanding of drama as a key learning area within the arts in education. The study is mainly focused on understanding the teacher’s perspectives, but the perspectives of the students and the principals are also included. The rationale for this study is that drama was included in the national curriculum framework in Iceland for the first time in 2013. As a result, there were considerable tensions connected with how Icelandic schools could or should embrace this newcomer to the curriculum, whether the necessary competence existed to teach the subject and what kind of status drama could achieve among the other subjects in school. The overarching research question is: How is drama as a subject implemented in Icelandic compulsory education?

Theoretical frameworks: Within a socio-cultural framework of understanding, an ethnographic study of the culture and the context for the implementation of drama was carried out. The ethnographic account is based on thick descriptions and thematic narrative analyses summed up as a cultural portrait of the drama teaching practices in Hillcrest (grade 5) and Mountain-line (grade 6) schools, respectively.

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