Acting to Manage Bullying and Conflict Through Evidence-based Strategies

This book offers a complete and detailed account of the evolution of an internationally successful, evidence-based program that has been the result of almost two decades of action research into conflict and bullying. It addresses one of the most serious problems encountered in schools and work places worldwide: that of bullying and inter-personal conflict. The book presents a comprehensive account of the research, development and refinement of the DRACON Project and the Acting Against Bullying and Cooling Conflicts programs. The effective strategies that emerged from the extensive international research and practice use a combination of theories of conflict and bullying management with drama techniques and peer teaching which have been unique in their application. The book analyses their evolution into an effective program that has impacted positively on bullying and conflict in a number of settings. In the UK the program successfully addressed behavioural problems amongst girls in schools through the use of peer teaching in a drama setting. In Sweden the program assists nursing students, nurses and other health professionals to deal with conflict in the workplace. In Australia it has been applied in hundreds of schools to reduce bullying and assist newly arrived refugees to deal with cultural conflict and develop resilience and self- identity in their new country. This volume makes a major and authentic contribution to the international effort to find effective strategies and techniques to deal with interpersonal conflict and bullying across a range of contexts.

Bruce Burton PhD is Professor Emeritus at Griffith University, Australia and has been an academic, teacher, playwright and theatre director. He was the first Chair in Applied Theatre in Australia. He has been the recipient of six Australian Research Council grants investigating the impact of theatre and drama education on conflict and bullying management, healing the consequences of childhood abuse in institutions, and assisting refugee re-settlement. He is the author of ten books in the fields of drama education and applied theatre and has trained a generation of drama teachers in Australia. He has received four national university teaching awards including the national Award in 2007 for excellence in teaching in the Humanities and the Arts.  Internationally Bruce has been a Visiting Scholar at Cambridge University in the UK, and a Visiting Professor at both Boras University and the Sahlgrenska Institute at Gothenburg University in Sweden.

Dr. Morag Morrison-Helme is a lecturer in Arts Education in the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge U.K. where she teaches and supervises on undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate courses in Drama, Creativity and Arts Education.  Morag co-ordinates the MPhil in Arts, Creativity, Education within the faculty and is Director of Studies in Education at St John's College in Cambridge. Morag has been involved in on-going research in Pupil Voice, Conflict Management and Democratic Teaching and Learning through creative practice; and most recently in developing an understanding of the role Applied Theatre pedagogy can play across diverse educational contexts and international settings. Morag is involved in an on-going ERASMUS exchange with the University of Gothenberg, Sweden where she teaches in the Department of Health Care Science, and she is currentlyalso utilizing Drama pedagogy in International Teacher Development work through her involvement in a programme of national education reform in Kazakhstan.

John O’Toole was Foundation Chair of Arts Education at the University of Melbourne from 2005-2010, and before that Professor of Drama and Applied Theatre at Griffith University.  A schoolteacher for twelve years, then actor-director in theatre in education, he has spent nearly forty years as a teacher-educator and academic, teaching on every continent and at every age level. He has written and co-written many standard research texts and student textbooks in drama and arts education, and was Lead Writer for the Arts and Drama in the Australian Curriculum. He was a founder-member of IDEA, and earlier of Drama Australia and Drama Queensland. He is also a playwright and director in applied theatre. In 2001 he was awarded the American Alliance for Theatre and Education Lifetime Research Award. In 2014 he was awarded the Order of Australia for services to drama education.   

Margret Lepp RN RNT PhD, is professor in caring science at the Institute of Health and Care Sciences, The Sahlgrenska Academy, at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. For over twenty years she has used drama for professional in her work as a researcher and consultant involving students, patients, academics, nurses and other health care professionals. She was a key researcher in the international DRACON (Drama and Conflict Management) project between 1994-2005. She was a Special Interest Group leader at four IDEA conferences and has published original articles, books, chapters of books and other reviewed publications.  During the years 2008-2012 she was Associate Editor of the Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences. She was a founder of the European Network Nursing Academies (ENNA) for European Academies cooperating in the context of Nursing Science. She is the current vice president of Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI), the Tau Omega Chapter, and the Chair of the STTI Education Advisory Council since 2014.