Abstract

This project extends research on creativity in schools in the UK (Brewer & Hogarth 2015; Lucas, Claxton and Spencer, 2013; Burnard 2012; Craft 2011;), in Korea (Cho et al, 2011), and in the USA (Robinson & Aronica 2015; Lubienski, 2009; Looney, 2009). Not only educators, but economists too have called for students to be equipped with creative 21st century skills (Sefton-Green 2011, Leadbeater 2010; Araya & Peters 2010; Robinson 2009; Burnard & White 2008; Florida 2002) enabling them to compete successfully in global markets in a time of rapid change, diversity and technological advances (McWilliam & Haukka, 2008; Pink, 2006). The evidence suggests that schools need to identify and develop programs that foster qualities such as creativity, innovation, empathy, problem-solving and decision-making (Cormier, 2010).

In Harris’ The Creative Turn study, she addresses the call for a more consistent approach to creative teaching and learning in the secondary context, including concerns about measurement, assessment and reporting. In an education era dominated by a discourse of transferability and scalability, creativity continues to represent both a neoliberalisation of arts education and a more widespread attention to the economic potential of diverse creativities. Secondary schools in particular offer a site of tension between these competing agendas, and this study drawing on teacher and student data from Australia, the USA , Canada and Singapore suggests that while standardised testing is seen to be the major impediment to fostering creativity in a senior secondary environment, it is also one of its most effective drivers across the education lifespan.

Anne Harris, PhD is currently an Australian Research Council Research Fellow (2014-2016) investigating creativity (its commodification and education embodiments). She is a Senior Lecturer in Education at Monash University (Melbourne), and an interdisciplinary researcher in the areas of the performing arts, diversity and digital media. She is a native New Yorker and has worked professionally as a playwright, teaching artist and journalist in the USA and Australia. She has published over 50 articles and 6 books, her latest being Video as Method (Oxford University Press), and is the book series editor of Creativity, Education and the Arts (Palgrave).