This paper identifies and discusses discourses of creativity and imagination in education, considering these as productive of social realities in educational contexts (Pastore, 2025). Paying attention to the material- semiotic character of social practices, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) provides a sensitizing framework to establish the nature of discourses related to each concept, in an effort to identify opportunities to improve educational support for imagination and creativity as a route to personal and social agency. We view such agency as potential for changing the ‘social imaginary’ (Castoriadis, 1997), vital in a posthuman (Braidotti, 2013) world where complex problems require novel solutions. Acknowledging the specific properties of recontextualization characteristic of the genres of governance (Fairclough 1999), we reflect upon how discursive tropes have emerged, designed for or appropriated by neoliberal ideologies. We then investigate the special value of cultural/artistic spaces in developing and platforming a new approach to learning, considering their role in enabling a progressive break from limiting rhetorics which may not align with socially/environmentally just practices.

Research Questions:

1. Creativity versus Imagination: What do contemporary rhetorics of creativity and imagination in education consist of and how do they compare?
2. Within these rhetorics, what are the influences and implications of neoliberal ideology?
3. Does one concept offer more than the other for supporting agency in a posthuman education context?
4. Do cultural/artistic organisations and practices have a special role to play in supporting the ‘victorious’ concept and if so, what is it?

Previous authors identify limitations in contemporary education for a broad definition of creativity, attributing this to its association with neoliberal ideology (Kalin, 2018). Adams and Owens (2016) offer a deeply ethical perspective: ‘critical creativity’, which incorporates notions of agency, democracy, political activism and citizenship and interprets creativity broadly. While seeking to uphold these values, we ask whether there is a more open and empowering term for just, progressive learning which can be claimed and applied, beyond restrictions of neoliberal ideology, with the potential to improve our ‘social imaginary’ (Castoriadis, 1997) and, (drawing on Sartre’s philosophy of imagination, 1936, 2012), to support ‘self-creation’. Within our educational experience ‘imagination’ is frequently embraced as a positive capacity, (Burns, 2024) seen almost as a human right. While the same could be said of ‘creativity’, the literature suggests this as a less ‘free’ capacity for which application and value are necessary credentials (Runco, 2014).

We aspire to the emergence of educational values associated with open-endedness and free thinking. These are necessary in a posthuman context, requiring us to adapt the way we think in fairly radical ways, moving beyond engrained humanism and anthropocentrism in order to solve complicated problems (Braidotti, 2013). According to Trend (2020), ‘…the recasting of creativity in universal terms can have positive effects’ if it is not defined in the narrow terms of cultural work or the creative industries.’  In response to this and further critiques we ask: is it time to downgrade or reject the term ‘creativity’ in favour of the more open term of ‘imagination’?  

While acknowledging that ‘imagination’, is frequently commandeered in service of neoliberal ends (Disney’s ‘Imagineering’ is an obvious example) we wonder whether there is broader scope for interpretation and action attached to the term ‘imagination’. As a term/capacity which is often seen as somehow magical and/or as a key facet of what it means to be a human (Burns, 2024), can its broader scope override restrictive models of ‘creativity’ while also encompassing it? Perhaps this re-framing/claiming of our imaginative capacities can have the potential to change the ‘social imaginary’ (Castoriadis, 1997), which is vital in a posthuman world where complex problems require novel solutions.

Within an interpretive, pragmatic stance which seeks to solve problems in practice (Rorty, Dewey), we attempt to address the restricting rhetoric of creativity, as shaped by neoliberal ideology. Overarching this, in both a practical and epistemological sense, is the general need to deal with a ‘convergence of crises’ (Braidotti, 2013), which requires ‘posthuman’ understanding and action. In the first place, this implies the need for a relational, ecological understanding which critically uncovers tacit injustice through examination of linguistic conceptualisations of the world (Fairclough et al., 2011). CDA enables us to disentangle the values and imperatives which animate education as a discursive, contested, site. Within this we focus on how educational notions such as creativity and imagination are specifically mobilized to reinforce (or unsettle) the financialized, individualized premises of neoliberalism in education (Giroux, 2011). Using this analysis, we go on to ask whether moving towards an emphasis on imagination in education may be advantageous in overcoming neoliberal limitations and finding more original and useful ways to learn, think and act. The structure of our critical discourse analysis draws on the account given by Keller (2025), drawing on work by Jäger (2009), Fairclough (1992, 2001), Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999) to integrate the emancipatory focus of Fairclough (2011) with Jäger’s disentangling and reknitting of discourse threads. Our analysis: - identifies and justifies the chosen topic (Jager (2009) refers to this as the discourse thread) in relation to both discourse level and practice - Identifies the context of the discourse and the relevant discursive events - Constructs a body of data - Creates and evaluates structures in the data in relation to the discourse thread - Engages in detailed textual analysis of discourse fragments with respect to institutional framework, composition and rhetoric and ideological position including power relations - Interprets these structures and detailed analyses in relation to the discourse thread and its context - Analyses discourse fragments in relation to each other and to practice - Considers our own positionality towards the context, ideology and power relations of this discourse We use our analysis as a basis for critical discussion about the potential of igniting or strengthening educational dialogue about imagination as a route to agency in education, going on to consider the role of art and galleries within this.

An informed discussion about this use of language in education explores how ‘creativity’ has emerged as one the keywords of the contemporary educational discourse and policy. While originally bound to broader ideas of phantasy, sensitivity and intellect, our analysis demonstrates that this concept is today often addressed as one of the many skills which are required to succeed in the contemporary economy and be valuable as a worthy element of the global workforce. However, the affirmative stance inherent in CDA implies that our heuristic discursive effort cannot divorce from the appreciation of alternatives within the educational discourse. Therefore, we propose to linger on the concept of imagination, retracing and relocating it within its specific orders of discourse, i.e. the social structuring of language which is itself part of the structuring and networking of social practices (Fairclough, 2011). By adopting a ‘problem oriented, critical approach’ (Fairclough et al., 2011, p. 358) to imagination and creativity we will dialogically engage with the social and political implications of the neoliberal ‘colonisation’ of creativity, and explore whether a more inclusive idea of human imagination can lead to a more inclusive idea of what it is to be human. Building on this, we interrogate how post-human understandings of imagination can lead to a recognition of and valuing of all ways of being human and of our mutual entanglement with the world we are part of. As we witness the ‘morbid symptoms’ of neoliberal collapse (Chomsky, 2021), pursuing this is more important than ever as narrow-serving, neoliberal authoritarianism and far-right ideologies gain strength around the globe.

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