Educational Psychology and the Taming of Creativity

• In Event: Possibilities of Subjectivity

Abstract

This paper presents a Foucauldian discourse analysis of the literature on creativity produced by US educational psychologists since the 1950s. It explores the relationships between the psychology of creativity and education, the range of psychological theories of creativity in education and their implications for governmentality. The study finds that psychology is expected to guide education. Creativity, used to be a matter of genius, has been turned into a matter of intentional novelty. The psychometrics of creativity assumes that creativity entails out-of-the-box thinking whereas the cognitive approach theorizes creativity as ordinary thinking plus expertise. These perspectives imply different creative personalities, and they both assume a world of inequality where people are ranked in terms of creativity.

Authors

• Thanh Ha Phung, Michigan State University

• Thanh Thi Ngo, Luong The Vinh Highschool

• Ha Thanh Nguyen, Michigan State University