The Discursive Construction of the Neoliberal Regime of Creativity in Education

• In Event: Post-foundational Approaches to Comparative Education SIG Highlighted Session: Schooling and curriculum

Abstract

Purposes
While analyzing the discourses on creativity engendered by state policies in the U.K, the U.S., and China since the late 20th century, we inquire in how they construct the meanings of creativity for education and shape power relations. Our exposure to the discourses has focused our attention on a dominant setup of creativity, which we call the neoliberal regime of creativity. The current project attempts to elucidate the workings of monolithic assumptions that constitute the neoliberal regime of creativity in education.
Perspectives and Modes of Inquiry
We approach the study from a perspective that resembles Foucauldian genealogy. Genealogy examines a cross-section of artifacts in a particular time and theorizes the range of implications they have on human life in the historical period. Genealogies are critical projects aligning with post-structuralism. They study the world from a discourse lens, assuming that realities are messy and changing practices rather than neat and fixed structures. Choosing their targets of critique for political reasons, genealogies tackle discourses that limit possibilities for thought and imagination.
Adopting the genealogical approach, this inquiry analyzes the discourses that have emerged since 1990s, exhibited a concern for creativity in education, and framed their debate in relation to national policies. The U.K, the U.S., and China are predominantly featured in the discourses. Instead of being given containers of practices, the three nations are seen as distinct discursive constructions. They present variations in how the ‘creativity crisis’ in education is manufactured as well as a dominant regime of creativity, which this study aims to portray and critique.
Objects of Study
The major body of data includes books and journal articles relevant to the research problem and published during the last 20 years by educational researchers. We also follow the public debates generated by some of the books and journal articles. All the artifacts are in English and published in English-speaking countries (primarily the U.S. and U.K.).
Results
The analysis finds a neoliberal regime of creativity where creativity relies on instrumental reason, functions to hierarchize social beings, and attains a national and global level of analysis.
The speakers calling attention to creativity in relation to national policies agree that there is a creativity crisis in education. The crisis is constructed in different ways on the same grounds of economic rationality. In Britain, since 1997, creativity has been a ubiquitous policy term boosted by the government in the spectrum of public policy including culture, education and economy. It is believed that creativity is cultural capital for economic development and the government has the duty to foster every individual’s creative potential through education. Discourses on creativity in education in the U.S. are most remarkably launched as criticism against No Child Left Behind and related policy endeavors to standardize education. Creativity is invoked to appeal to the strength of the American education system and challenge the problematization of the system based on its students’ mediocre scores in international standardized tests. It is also thought out as cultural capital for competitive economic advantages. Publications on creativity in China reveal the country’s struggle with the assumption that Asians are less creative than Westerners. An education reform movement called ‘Education for Quality’ has embraced creativity as the answer to the question of what kind of citizens must be produced for the nation’s competition in the global market economy. Like the U.K. and the U.S. ‘creativity crisis’ arguments, the discourse in China is cast in terms of neoliberalism, which assumes capitalist gain as the ultimate goal.
The strong advocacy for creativity takes place in an atmosphere of intensified policization. The language of creativity is hijacked by the language of control. Creativity becomes manageable rather than disruptive and destabilizing. On the surface are explicit references to creativity as a generic skill for success in a world of increased speed. The neoliberal regime of creativity characterizes late capitalism with faster knowledge production and more control. Globalization becomes the establishment of a model of capitalism on a global scale.
Significance
The project contributes a robust characterization of the global discourses of creativity on education. We also hope that our intervention presents a way of speaking that is encouraging for educators to reexamine their practice and articulate arguments about creativity in relation to their own commitments in education.

Author

• Thanh Ha Phung, Michigan State University