| dc.description.abstract | This thesis explores children’s and teachers’ perspectives on creativity, and its
implementation, within one primary school classroom in Scotland. The
data collection phase of the research employed an ethnographic approach, involving four
and a half months of fieldwork in the primary school classroom. Data were generated from
participant observation/informal conversations with children and teachers and one round
of semi-structured interviews with twenty-five children (aged eleven to twelve) and two
teachers.
Creativity within primary education has been mainly studied through psychological
research, which is mainly based on theories of developmental psychology. Such theories
view creativity solely as an individual trait. Despite recognition of the importance of sociocultural
issues to the flourishing of children’s creativity, the study of their collaborative
creativity has been neglected – particularly in relation to socio-cultural power dynamics.
This thesis specifically analyses the balance between individual and collective creativity
in the primary classroom, examines how collaborative creativity can acknowledge
childhood diversity, and poses questions about how we include children with differing and
complex identities in creative processes.
Furthermore, this research has been carried out in Scotland, within the context of a fairly
new curriculum, the Curriculum for Excellence. This curriculum has been viewed by some
as a progressive, modern and motivating curriculum that enables children’s autonomy, and
by others as one that has been highly influenced by accountability and performativity
regimes, which leave limited space for children’s and teachers’ autonomy. This thesis
examines how the Curriculum for Excellence is interpreted in everyday practice and the
extent to which it enables the cultivation of children’s creativity. The thesis does so by
shedding light on the practical interconnections between children’s and teachers’ agency,
structural enablers/barriers, and cultural processes.
The findings of this study show that children perceive, perform and embody creativity not
only as an individual trait, but also as a collaborative process. However, the findings also
show that collaborative creativity entails many complexities and that cultural barriers to
creativity may emerge when power among people (children and teachers) operates in ways
that create cultures of exclusion. The thesis concludes that the multiple identities of the
Curriculum for Excellence, its multiple interpretations, and lack of coherence regarding
what is expected of teachers, leads to a blurred landscape of implementation. The thesis
argues that lack of a clear plan, strategy and framework for enabling creativity inhibits the
founding principles of the Curriculum for Excellence from being achieved. The thesis also
argues that environmental and structural barriers within the research setting inhibit the
flourishing of children’s creativity, but that the structural barriers can sometimes be
overcome through the construction of enabling cultures. The thesis is able to define
enabling cultures as cultures that value diversity, promote inclusion, and view space not
as static, but as a dynamic process.
In so doing, the findings of this study emphasise the interconnected importance of: viewing
creativity as an individual trait; perceiving creativity as a collaborative process; and
thinking in spatial terms, for example, in ways that create the space for children to perceive,
perform and embody creativity in their diverse, but equally valuable ways. This finding
enables this study to argue that there is a need for future policies and curricula which
promote and encourage greater flexibility in teaching and learning practices, in order to
enhance children’s and teachers’ agency and thus allow them to collaboratively create the
types of enabling environments, originally envisaged by the Curriculum for
Excellence, that will allow children’s creativity to flourish. | en |
