International Journal of Education & the Arts

Citation: Giagazoglou, P., Dampa, A., Alexiadis, A., Lenakakis, A., Dimitropoulou, D., & Magos, K. (2026). From fairy tales to real-life safety: An educational drama-based intervention for children's self-protection skills. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 27(4). http://doi.org/10.26209/ijea27n4

This study evaluates an educational drama-based intervention that improves children's safety awareness and self-protection skills, using classic fairy tales as the basis for experiential learning activities. Each selected tale (Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, and Snow White) featured a protagonist who became entangled in a dangerous situation due to poor self-protection choices, allowing children to analyze risks and explore safer alternatives through dramatic play and role reversal. The study included 79 third-grade students from a school in Northern Greece, divided into an intervention group (N=40) and a control group (N=39). Children's safety knowledge was assessed using questionnaires, while realistic social experiments measured their actual behavioral responses before and after the intervention. Additionally, the qualitative analysis examined children's perceptions of a "bad" or dangerous person through their written descriptions. Results showed significant improvements in the intervention group, both in their theoretical knowledge and real-life application of self-protection skills. Initially, nearly 90% of children in both groups followed a stranger offering a tempting reward. However, after the intervention, the majority of children in the experimental group resisted deceptive lures, and this effect was sustained in a three-year follow-up assessment. Furthermore, children’s conceptualizations of danger evolved, shifting from a reliance on external appearance to an awareness that threats can come from individuals who appear friendly and trustworthy. These findings underscore the long-term impact of experiential learning in self-protection education. Through engaging, interactive experiences, children gained practical self-protection skills with lasting impact, highlighting the effectiveness of experiential learning in early safety education.