This is a study of educational drama. An ethnographic approach has been adopted in order to ground the research in the experiences of drama teachers and students in three classroom settings. As the participant observer and teacher researcher, the author collected and analysed data in order to inquire into the drama curriculum in action. The case studies are presented in a narrative style designed to evoke key features of each context and to provide engaging interpretive accounts of the participants' drama experiences. The research design was modified in response to the problems of methodology that were encountered as the study proceeded. The collaborative structure of the third case study, involving the classroom teacher and the students as partners in the research process, is proposed as the preferred model for classroom based research and for professional development. On the basis of the study, an ethnographic approach is found to provide drama teachers with the reflective means to improve teaching practice. The study illuminates the influence of the school and classroom context on the participants' perceptions of drama; divergent views between the teacher and the students about the purpose of the drama curriculum are seen to constrain the quality of the drama. In this study, participants valued the drama they encountered with an intensity that transformed the classroom setting, giving them access through an aesthetic experience to an alternative world or to another world view.