Session Information
17 SES 03, Parallel Paper Session
Parallel Paper Session
Contribution
One of the defining characteristics of the postwar western society – and of the educational discourse – is change. Change is seen as omnipresent and fast, and arriving with the connotation of crisis. Creativity is generally regarded as an answer to this crisis, as a way of dealing with the ever-recurring changes. It even becomes one of the (educational) buzzwords across the western world (Europe and North America) at the end of the 1960s. The goal of this paper is to show how creativity forms an essential part of how the self of teachers is constructed after the Second World War. As such, it is part of what Nikolas Rose has called ‘the genealogy of subjectification’ (1996).
A genealogy of subjectification is not a history of ideas, but one of practices and techniques, which are the instruments through which being constitutes itself. Somewhat misleadingly, Michel Foucault dubbed these practices ‘technologies of the self’. Following Rose, I intend to extend this analysis beyond the field of ethics, and examine the relation to oneself through transformations in ‘mentalities’ or ‘intellectual techniques’ (Rose 1996). These practices and techniques are altered and changed over time, for they are not already made, rather they must be invented and refined. In this paper, I intend to argue that creativity is an intellectual technique, that is, one of the instruments through which teachers constitute themselves. Although creativity entered the (English) vocabulary before the Second World War, it rose to prominence in the postwar (educational) discourse, aided by its popularity in psychological circles. It was only then that creativity became an intellectual technique. It allowed teachers to give meaning to their experience, to form their own identities. A creative self should be a flexible self, able to deal with an ever-changing society. As Christine Korsgaard states (2009), the self is constituted from actions and the choices one makes as a ‘free’ individual. Self-constitution involves finding your roles and integrating these roles in a single identity. One of the more important roles to be integrated is the professional identity, and as creativity becomes a leading educational concept that is all about change and choices, it becomes an important element in the identity of teachers. The primary focus of this presentation will be on how creativity – as an ‘intellectual technique’ – becomes a significant part of the constitution of the self for (primary) teachers.
In order to achieve this, a series of interviews with Belgian primary teachers who were teaching or started teaching during the period 1965-1975 will be utilised, a period that coincides with the emergence of creativity as a crucial concept in the Belgian and European educational context. The results of these interviews will be critically examined, and crosschecked with an analysis of a few pedagogical journals aimed at primary teachers. This will also provide the necessary background information, as well as a good and encompassing view on the Belgian educational discourse around creativity.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
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