Perceptions and Possibilities: a School Community’s Imaginings for a Future Curriculum for Excellence

Author(s):

Valerie Drew(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2013

Network:

03. Curriculum Innovation

Format:

Paper

Session Information

03 SES 07 A, Creativity in Education

Paper Session

Time:

2013-09-11

17:15-18:45

Room:

D-402

Chair:

Jan Berkvens

Contribution

The European Commission’s (EC 2012) desire for creativity and innovation continues to influence the direction of education policies across member states (see for example Education Scotland, 2012). However this aspiration is not new, creativity and imagination are familiar and enduring constructs in education. Too familiar perhaps, the words loosely woven through policy documents, their traits unproblematically linked to pedagogies and pupils, professionals and practitioners, practices and performances, their meanings all too often unquestioned and uncontested. The present resurgence of interest in creativity, one of many during the post Sputnik period (Kelly, 2009), is closely aligned to a global policy drive for economic sustainability but seems to promote an instrumental interpretation linked closely to the ‘skills for work’ agenda (see for example SG, 2009). This somewhat narrow economic ‘policy imaginary’ (Ritzvi and Lingard, 2010) is in contrast to Greene’s (1995) ‘social imaginary’ which invites school communities to ‘to look at things as if they could be otherwise’ in an attempt to address the ever-present issues surrounding social justice and democracy.

In acknowledging the temporal nature of the discourses of imagination and creativity, this study was designed to trouble these seemingly straightforward constructs, not merely to trace or audit their inclusion in the secondary curriculum - but rather to invite a secondary school community to put these constructs to work in exploring their imaginings for future secondary education.

This paper examines the findings from two of the questions in the study, namely:

What are a school community’s imaginings for secondary education 25-30 years ahead?
What does a secondary school community desire in future education?

A mapping of the discourses of creativity and imagination in national and European education policies established the policy context for this study, whilst a bricolage of ideas assembled from literature on imagination, creativity, curriculum and policy both helped to critique this context and inform the methodology.

The theoretical framework was developed from readings of concepts drawn from the creative philosophical stance of Deleuze and Guattari (2004). Concepts such as smooth and striated spaces, desire and becoming were selected from Deleuze and Guattari’s toolbox in an attempt to open a smooth, creative space for analysing the school community’s perceptions, imaginings and desires.

Method

The research was undertaken during the development phase of a new curriculum, Curriculum for Excellence (SE,2004). The study took place in a large comprehensive school community in a rural town in Scotland. Groups of participants drawn from across the school community included: pupils, parents, early-career teachers, mid-career teachers and school managers. In keeping with the creative stance of this study the approach for data collection was adapted from Open Space Technology (OST) (Owen 1998). OST offered an unstructured discussion forum for participants to discuss their perceptions, imaginings and desires. In an attempt to interrupt the hierarchical nature of the school community and provide a smooth space for discussion the participants were invited to engage in homogeneous groups in the OST sessions. The recordings of these discussions and artefacts from the sessions were analysed using the theoretical concepts identified above.

Expected Outcomes

A number of tentative findings are emerging from the analysis: •There is some indication that the current policy desire for creativity in education is in direct tension with the strengthening hold of the control society in schools. •The school community articulate a desire for good education and greater flexibility and movement in and across structures and systems through increased choice and opportunities. •Whilst the new curriculum policy appeared to open up a space for more flexible school based-curriculum development the school community’s imaginings are closely aligned to past experiences and their imaginings seem to be aligned to the policy makers’ desires which appears to close down opportunities to follow new lines of flight. •There is a visible desire in the school community for ‘good’ education in a fair and equitable system which seems to be less narrowly focused on economic imperatives than that of the policy. •The apparent lack of future orientated imagination and creativity might be considered problematic if young people are to be engaged in thinking about their contribution to a more sustainable future.

References

Buchanan, I. (2000) Deleuzism A metacommentary. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press European Commission (2012) RETHINKING EDUCATION: Investing in Skills for better socio-economic outcomes at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2012:0669:FIN:EN:PDF [Accessed 31 January 2013] Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (2004) A Thousand Plateaus – Capitalism and Schizophrenia London: Continuum. Education Scotland (2012) The curriculum in Scotland , Education Scotland at: www.educationscotland.gov.uk/thecurriculum/ Eisner, E. W. (1985)The Educational Imagination – On the Design and Evaluation of School Programs (2nd ed.) New York: MacMillan. Greene, M. (1995) Releasing the imagination Essays on Education, the Arts and Social Change San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Hope Mason, J. (2003) The value of creativity; the origins and emergence of a modern belief. Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Ltd. Jackson, A.Y. and Mazzei L.A. (2012) Thinking with theory Qualitative Research viewing data across multiple perspectives. Oxon: Routledge. Kaufman, J. C., and Sternberg, R. J. (eds.) (2006) The International Handbook of Creativity New York: Cambridge University Press. Mazzei, L. M. (2011) Desiring silence: gender, race and pedagogy in education, British Educational Research Journal, 37 (4), pp. 657-669. Neilson, T.W., Fitzgerald, R. and Fettes, M. (eds.) (2010) Imagination in educational practice: a many-sided vision, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing Owen, H. (1998) Open Space technology: a user’s guide (3rd ef.) San Francisco: Berret-Koehler Publishers Inc. Priestley, M. and Humes, W., (2010), The development of Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence: amnesia and déjà vu, Oxford Review of Education, 36(3), pp. 345-361. Rizvi, F. and Lingard, B.(2010) Globalizing education policy. London: Routledge. Scottish Government (2009) BtC4 Skills for learning, skills for life and skills for work Edinburgh: Scottish Government Tuck, E. (2010) Breaking up with Deleuze: desire and valuing the irreconcilable. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 23 (5), 635-650. Vygotsky, L.S. (1964 / 2004) Imagination and creaticity on childhood. Journal of Russian and European Psychology, 42 (1), 7-97.

Author Information

Valerie Drew (presenting / submitting)

University of Stirling, United Kingdom

Search the ECER Programme

Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
Search for authors and in the respective field.
For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.