The Creative Turn: Fostering Creativities in Secondary Schools, an International Study

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• Dr Anne Harris, Monash University
• Thursday 07 July 2016, 16:30-18:00
• DMB GS1, Faculty of Education, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 8PH.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Pamela Burnard.

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).

This talk is part of the Homerton CIG Series 2015 - 2016 series.

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