Purpose

Since the late 1990s, increasing attention has been paid to creativity in education by policy‑makers globally (Craft, 2006). This political focus on creativity is derived from a need for greater creativity in order to survive and thrive in the twenty-first century (Seltzer & Bentley, 1999; Craft, 2002). It is deemed that the attributes of creativity such as flexibility, adaptability, and originality are fundamental for meeting the requirements of social life and work in the rapidly ­changing twenty­‑first century society (Dobbins, 2009). However, the concrete realization of a creativity agenda can vary with its social context although all of them are education policies promoted under the name of “creativity.” Furthermore, since creativity tended to be established based on Western values (Craft, 2006), it often triggers tension when it is emphasized in different contexts, especially in Asian countries. In the case of South Korea, a creativity agenda in education policy has been formed and developed by being linked with present issues in Korean society on the one hand, while conflicting with Korean traditional values on the other hand. The purpose of this study is to explore the formation and development of a creativity agenda in Korean education policy. Therefore, we examined two research questions: 1) what value does a creativity agenda pursue in Korean education policy? 2) how has creativity, as an agenda of education policy, been contextualized in Korean society?

Theoretical framework

Interest in creativity in education is not a recent phenomenon (Saebo, McCammon & O’Farrell, 2006). It dates back to the time of Plato (Cropley, 2004). Moreover, creativity has been studied throughout diverse eras with various traditions (Craft, 2001). Meanwhile, creativity has been widely discussed in various fields from various perspectives, but studies on creativity have tended to adopt one out of two approaches (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009). One approach involves focusing on Big­‑C creativity that belongs to outstanding and gifted people, and the other approach involves focusing on little­‑c creativity that everyone is expected to have.

In the education field, studies on creativity before the 1980s mainly focused on Big‑C creativity (Craft, 2006). However, those studies only targeted remarkable people who won prestigious awards or left behind historical records (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009), which led to limitations with respect to understanding creativity as an attribute of a minority of people. Therefore, recently the concept of little­‑c creativity has emerged in order to grasp and explain creativity to the general public. Particularly, as it began to be considered necessary for every individual to develop maximum creativity in his or her own field to overcome individual and national challenges in the twenty-first century, there has been a growing trend towards emphasizing everyday creativity by ordinary people (Richards, 1990).

Creativity in the process of policy-making is likely to be understood as a universally applicable concept regardless of the social context in which it is dealt. However, it is suggested that the notion of creativity was established with reference to Western individualism driven by the capitalist marketplace (Craft, 2006). Hence, creativity is sometimes criticized for reflecting certain cultures or values in advance (Craft, 2003, 2006). According to the criticism, the discourse about creativity adds value to individuality, generative thinking beyond social norms, and innovative engagement with the economy as both producer and consumer (Jeffrey & Craft, 2001). When the Western values inherent in creativity meet the contrasting cultures that appreciate conformity and collectivism, there could be certain tensions and conflicts. Therefore, education policy for creativity can be limited partly due to cultural uniqueness of each nation (Craft, 2003).

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