The concept of creativity is neither a natural nor a neutral ingredient in the ways we have come to classify a child (Martins, 2014). Even if the history of childhood creativity goes back at least to the 19th century or further still, with such figures as Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Froebel, it is essentially in the Post-World War II period that we can witness a boom in its study (Bycroft, 2012). Childhood was considered as the place to search for the lost time of creativity. The understanding of the creative paths of the mind would open up avenues for social and economic values, answering to cultural anxieties derived from the Cold War. J.P. Guilford, who directed a research unit at the U.S. Army and Air Force, was supported with grants to study creativity through an approach on the nature of the human mind. From the study of mental operations to the measurement of creativity, Guilford and his followers insisted on the importance of bringing creative methods and nurturing creativity in the child’s development. But they were not alone in highlighting the potential of creation in the constructing of a new, better and more egalitarian society and the raising of better children for the future. The paper will focus on the study of the creative movement in the Post-World War II psychological and educational sciences, and how these “findings” travelled from the laboratory to the child’s environment. As childhood was perceived to be the place of origin of creativity, attention was given to children’s play activities, play objects, the time and the spaces of childhood (Ogata, 2013). The “design culture” (Highmore, 2014) around the creative child defined a series of objects and practices which were the materialization of the psychological concerns on childhood creativity and a way of governing the child. These ideas have governed until today the practices through which the child is taught and raised at home and in school, and choices are made relating to children’s exercises, toys, books or play activities and its time-spaces for the making up of the creative child. The naturalization of creativity as part of childhood overlooks difference, although, at the same time, creativity as a “commodity” brings the promise of exclusivity, classifying who is the creative child and who is not.

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