Bob Jeffrey

Teaching creatively and teaching for creativity: distinctions and relationships

The distinction and relationship between teaching creatively and teaching for creativity identified in the report from the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE, 1999), is examined by focusing on empirical research from an early years school, known for its creative approach. The examination uses four characteristics of creativity and pedagogy identified by Peter Woods (1990): relevance, ownership, control and innovation, to show the interdependence of the NACCCE distinctions. We conclude that although the NACCCE distinction between teaching creatively and teaching for creativity has been useful as an analytical tool, it may, at the same time, have dichotomised an integrated practice and we suggest that a more useful distinction for the study of creative pedagogies would be the relationship between teaching creatively and creative learning.

Feeling Deprofessionalised: the social construction of emotions during an OFSTED inspection

Abstract In a qualitative study of a primary school, it was found that the technicist approach of an OFSTED inspection impacted against the holistic and humanistic values of the teachers, producing a high degree of trauma among them. This trauma was not a simple emotional response of the moment, nor was it a product of school failure or lack of leadership, for neither of these applied. It was, rather, socially and politically constructed. The teachers’ reactions have to be seen against the background of government reforms over the last decade. In this context, the particular emotions released suggest that the inspection examined here had a latent function of deprofessionalisation. Professional uncertainty was induced, with teachers experiencing confusion, anomie, anxiety and doubt about their competence. They also suffered an assault on their personal selves, closely associated among primary teachers with their professional roles. This took the form of mortification, dehumanisation, the loss of pedagogic ...

Creativity and performativity policies in primary school cultures

Cultures of performativity in English primary schools refer to systems and relationships of: target‐setting; Ofsted inspections; school league tables constructed from pupil test scores; performance management; performance related pay; threshold assessment; and advanced skills teachers. Systems which demand that teachers ‘perform’ and in which individuals are made accountable. These policy measures, introduced to improve levels of achievement and increased international economic competitiveness, have, potentially, profound implications for the meaning and experience of primary teachers’ work; their identities; their commitment to teaching; and how they view their careers. At the same time as policies of performativity are being implemented there is now increasing advocacy for the adoption and advancement of ‘creativity’ policies within primary education. These major developments are being introduced in the context of a wide range of social/educational policies also aimed at the introduction of creativity initiatives into schools and teaching. This complex policy context has major implications for the implementation process and also primary teachers’ work and how they experience it. The ethnographic research reported in this article has been conducted over a school year in six English primary schools in order to analyse the effects of creativity and performativity policy initiatives at the implementation stage. The article concludes by arguing that in the schools of our research the drive to raise pupil test scores involves both performative and creative strategies and that this critical mediation goes beyond amelioration toward a more complex view of professional practice. Implementing creativity and performativity policies provided important contextual influencing factors on teacher commitment. These were: curriculum coverage and task completion; and providing psychic rewards of teaching.

Creative teaching and learning: towards a common discourse and practice

There has recently been a call for more pedagogic comparative research to counter the dominance of structural and policy led studies. At the same time there is also a necessity to provide alternative comparative research to that concerned with global standardizing performance and performativity strategies. The research, on which this paper is based, fulfils both these aims by investigating creative teaching and learning in nine European countries at classroom level using ethnographic methods in a small number of sites for each partner. The research partners share a common discourse of pedagogy that we are calling creative teaching and learning, a common humanitarian discourse and the ethnographic methodology for the research was a strong framework to counter differing cultural approaches to research. The article analytically characterizes some significant strategies used by teachers, the creative learning experienced and the meaning that the experiences had for the students involved. We conclude that this research has laid the basis for a common discourse for further research in a comparative approach that will investigate commonalities to build an understanding of international creative pedagogy and investigate differences to enhance the conceptualization of it.

A research team in ethnography

There are signs that teams are becoming more popular in ethnographic research. New technology and, in the UK, the Research Assessment Exercise have facilitated the establishment and continuance of teams. In this paper, the authors discuss their experiences in one particular research team in recent years. Securing adequate funding has been the essential structural prerequisite. The authors distinguish among project, federated, and whole teams, depending on function and level of analysis. They consider team structure, approach, business, and processes, and the relationship between individual and team. Teamwork has enabled a wider and deeper coverage of work, a broader comparative base, and multiple researcher triangulation. The team provides a forum for the discussion of ethical issues, an immediate supportive reference group. It has opened up horizons, and promoted individual change and development. It has aided analysis and writing, and promoted clearer and more robust arguments. The article concludes with some caveats.

Choosing Positions: living the contradictions of OFSTED

Abstract A new system of schools’ inspection, under the ‘Office for Standards in Education’ (OFSTED), was set up in 1992. Nominally independent, it was appointed within the frame of the general restructuring of public institutions and of the governments marketization and managerialization of the education system in the late 1980s and early 1990s. As the operations of OFSTED bear directly on inspectors and teachers, it provides good opportunities to study the effects on them of restructuring and how they cope with the powers of the slate. The values behind the new reforms contrast sharply with the prevailing child‐centred discourse preferred by primary school teachers. Inspectors, in the actual execution of inspections, represented themselves as moderating their approach in a kind of humanistic managerialism which apparently goes some way to meeting the teachers’ position. However, this is not how the inspections were experienced by the teachers. They were conscious of a deep and damaging value clash in t...

Qualitative data analysis in cross‐cultural projects

Large‐scale research projects, conducted in a cross‐European context, are increasingly attractive to educational researchers and policy‐makers. However, this form of comparative research across cultures brings problems concerning the standardization of data collection and analysis, particularly where ethnographic research is concerned, as it prioritizes a full range of qualitative research strategies. This paper outlines the use of a universal model and the approaches recently taken by two research teams and contrasts these with another recent nine‐partner comparative European study that used ethnographic methods. We then describe the analytical procedures used in the project, which encouraged participant observation and individual researcher interpretation in order to generate grounded accounts and outline how they were culturally sensitive and meaningful to research teams who used varied analytical approaches. However, this raised difficult issues for the ‘final’ analysis and the production of a loosely coupled research report. Our pragmatic solution was a process of ‘qualitative synthesis’ whereby individual partner reports were collated by the Project Director and treated as data and a grounded theory approach was applied to generate tentative theory in respect of creative learning. The paper concludes by arguing that data generated by a loosely coupled approach to qualitative comparative research which uses a wide range of data collection methods can be effectively analysed with a qualitative synthesis.

Primary Pupil's Perspectives and Creative Learning

Teachers and policymakers can be assisted in their work to construct an appropriate curriculum and pedagogic approach by gaining pupils perspectives of their learning engagements. We have done our research for pupils perspectives in schools and classrooms that exhibit creative teaching because the climate within them encourages children to express themselves openly and imaginatively. We have identified three areas of expression as being relevant to discerning primary childrens perspectives, individual interpretations, social interactions and reflective evaluations. These areas are, at the same time, lenses for researching young childrens perspectives and the data itself shows ways in which children develop their own creative learning. We conclude with some pedagogic proposals, based on research, for promoting creative learning and developing childrens perspsectives.

Learner inclusiveness for creative learning

In this article, we explore distinctions between creative practice and a practice which fosters creativity, drawing on case study data from an English nursery and a first school. We suggest that, in practice, these distinctions are very blurred.

Team and Technology in Writing up Research

Abstract This article considers the writing up of ethnographic research, focusing on the parts played by teamwork and by electronic mail (e‐mail) in the construction of one of the chapters of a book written by the team. The career of this construction, which took place over a period of 2 months, is tracked through the e‐mail messages that circulated among the team. These illustrate team interaction in analysis and writing, the use of e‐mail technology, and particular issues in writing and how they were resolved. Following the reconstruction, we discuss the benefits offered by team and technology in this kind of enterprise—enhanced validity, enrichment, support, sustained impetus, and style. We conclude with some cautionary notes.