Ana craft

The rhetorics of creativity: A review of the literature
Shakuntala Banaji and Andrew Burn with David Buckingham Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media, Institute of Education,University of London.

These reports have been commissioned to introduce readers to the main principles, theories, research and debates in the field. They aim to introduce the major themes and writingpertaining to each area of study and to outline key trends and arguments. The executive summary and bibliography offer pointers for further research and application.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Ken Jones and Julian Sefton-Green for their contributions to our thinking on a number of issues discussed in this review. In addition, we are grateful to the speakers and participants at our expertseminar on creativity held on 16th January 2006 at the London Knowledge Lab. We also thank Creative Partnerships for enabling us to carry out this review.

Cover photograph: Generation by Joe Hillier at the headquarters of One Northeast, the regional development agency Photographer: David Williams

The rhetorics of creativity: a review of the literature
A report for Creative Partnerships
ByShakuntala Banaji and Andrew Burn with David Buckingham Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media, Institute of Education, University of London. December 2006
1. Introduction 2. Creative genius 3. Democratic and political creativity 4. Ubiquitous creativity 5. Creativity as a social good 6. Creativity as economic imperative 7. Play and creativity 8. Creativity and cognition 9. Thecreative affordances of technology 10. The Creative Classroom 11. Summary 12. Themes and questions 5 7 12 19 24 30 35 39 46 50 55 59
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Foreword
Creative Partnerships aims to develop schoolchildren’s potential, ambition, creativity and imagination, by building sustainable partnerships between schools, creative and cultural organisations and individuals, which impact on learning. Phase 1 of theprogramme ran from April 2002 to March 2004. Sixteen Creative Partnerships were established in areas of economic and social disadvantage. Each Creative Partnership brokered partnerships between 15-25 schools and creative individuals and organisations. Nine Phase 2 Creative Partnerships areas joined the initiative in September 2004 and eleven Phase 3 areas joined during September 2005. CreativePartnerships aims to influence policy and practice in both the education and cultural sectors. It was established by Arts Council England, with funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) in response to the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE) report by Ken Robinson: All Our Futures: Creativity,Culture and Education. It spearheads a raft of initiatives designed to develop creativity and encompasses social, personal and economic domains. As a flagship project, Creative Partnerships can have maximum impact if teachers, parents, children, young people and creative practitioners learn from the experience and activities that are delivered through the programme. For this reason one of the mostsignificant legacies of Creative Partnerships will be the product of its research and evaluation and how that is effectively communicated to stakeholders. However, because Creative Partnerships works by creating partnerships drawn from the widest fields of endeavour, the different stakeholders recognise that there is a ‘knowledge gap’ between reflection, analysis and learning from CreativePartnerships. In addition, the wide focus of approach, which is fundamental to the eclectic nature of creativity, means that people are often working at the limit of their disciplines. For these reasons we have commissioned a series of research monographs exploring the key issues in a range of current literature and summarising the latest developments in each subject. Each monograph is written by an...