In this issue of the Nordic Journal of Art & Research, we present two scholarly articles that are both connected to drama, yet are quite different.

One article explores how arts-based research can be used to raise awareness of frontotemporal dementia. Drawing on autoethnographic conversations and observations, and using narrative analysis, the authors have created the play My Name is Beatrice. They also examine the play’s structure and central findings and highlight ethnodrama as an analytical tool for making cultural silence, stigma and misdiagnosis visible.

The other article examines how theatre work in a lower secondary school can be developed as an arena for citizenship and democracy. The study is intended as a research and knowledge contribution for schools and teachers who wish to develop lower secondary school performing arts productions in a more democratic direction. The research may also inform teacher education programmes’ approaches to aesthetic learning processes in interdisciplinary teaching.