Affirmation of New Labours continued commitment to the notion of creativity in third way thinking came through New Labours paper DCMS; Culture and Creativity the Next Ten Years (2001) Within the document the then Culture Secretary Chris Smith stated that ‘In the years ahead, people’s creativity will increasingly be the key to a country’s cultural identity, to its economic
success, and to individuals well-being and sense of fulfilment’. (2001: 5). Prime Minister Tony Blair in the same document placed creativity at the centre of both individual and societal fulfilment and success.
This Government knows that culture and creativity matter. They matter because they can enrich all our lives, and everyone deserves the opportunity to develop their own creative talents and to benefit from those of others…They also matter because creative talent will be crucial to our individual and national economic success in the economy of the future.
(2001: 3)
New Labour rhetoric connecting culture, education and the economy appeared to imply cohesion and a bright new future of policy making and shaping in relation to creativity. Interrogation and examination of the doctrine however suggests the existence of a paradox. The concept of creativity also co-existed in the domains of artists, art forms and well-established National cultural establishments with little or no connectedness to education and the economy. Such domains were believed to embrace and enjoy a protected elitist existence, set apart from the public and education, also politically supported through policy maintaining this ‘status quo’ Co-existence of domains arguably reflected a divergence of thinking in relation to creativity and culture within New Labour. This suggested that politically not everyone sang to the same creativity hymn sheet (Smith, 1998; Jowell, 2004; McMaster, 2008; Street, 2011).
Bilton (2010) spoke of creativity as a paradoxical process. He believed under New Labour academic study and theories surrounding creativity oscillated with definitions shifting;
First, creativity is an essentially paradoxical process. Since 1997, when the UK government endorsed ‘creativity’ as a central aspect of cultural policy, creativity has indeed been associated with an individualistic, spontaneous and ungovernable free spirit – closely allied to Romantic theories of art.
However, the consensus in scientific and academic studies of creativity has shifted definitions of creativity from an individual trait to a collective social process. Since the 1990s most of the literature on creativity has been concerned with sociocultural context, systems theories, networks and organisations – not with creative individuals. However, trait-based theories of creativity have become increasingly unfashionable. Theories of creativity have moved beyond individual, person-based approaches towards collective, process-based models.
(2010: 258)
Within the Government paper Culture and Creativity: The Next Ten Years (DCMS, 2001) an ‘all encompassing’ approach to creativity and education was articulated. Inclusion in the report was a proposal to introduce an arts based education pilot programme managed by the Arts Council of England called ‘Creative Partnerships’. The programme was subsequently launched by Tessa Jowell, then Culture Secretary, in 2002. Creative Partnerships targeted school aged children and can be seen as pivotal in providing the vehicle for direct enactment of creativity in schools espoused by New Labour shaped by Third Way thinking. Ward (2010) suggested that ‘we’, (referring to the social nexus) gave potency to the idea that New Labours Third Way schemes such as Creative Partnerships could stimulate economic growth and cancel out the pernicious effects of long-term unemployment in deprived communities. Jones and Thomson (2008) believed CP did not arise from within the established framework of educational governance, but was a result of an intervention by Arts Council England to strengthen the position of arts
education within the formal system of schooling.
Creative Partnerships (CP) was primarily funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) via Arts Council England, with additional funds from the Department for Children, Families and Schools (DCFS). CP targeted English schools in areas that were designated as deprived across 36 English regions. The programme supported so called ‘creative practitioners’, predominately artists, working alongside teachers in reforming and
redesigning school curriculum, teacher pedagogies, school cultures and school structures. The aim of the flagship programme was to change whole schools by transforming teaching and learning practice.
Alexander et al (2009) suggested that a consensus developed between policy-makers, the business community and a range of academic disciplines that creativity, along with critical thinking skills, served pupils and society better than a teaching ideology rewarding learning by rote in a narrow curriculum. As such developing a curriculum that enabled experimental activity and questioning to take place was believed to be the way forward in education (2009: 17-19).
The notion of an ‘all encompassing’ approach to creativity and education extended beyond school age children to post 16 education provision.
Consultative bodies appeared to respond with enthusiasm and keenness in embracing New Labours rhetoric of creativity. This can be seen in the Learning Skills and Development Agencies (2001) response to Culture and Creativity. In the response, affirmation that ‘everyone is creative’ is given and the agency supported the DCMS’s viewpoint that ‘a coherent approach to policy development is required which range across education, economic development and culture to create for the first time coherent pathways for individuals to develop their creativity in culture and media’. The LSDA urged government to promote similar initiatives to Creative Partnerships in the learning and skills sector. (2001: 1-5)
Cropley (2001) believed four ideas around the concept of creativity became prominent under New Labour. Namely, that creativity was necessary for economic and social progress, there was a lack of creativity in society, the
lack was an educational problem and it was possible to reform educational practice so that it promoted creativity. According to Cropley, teachers overwhelmingly supported the fostering of creativity in classrooms but he argued the true value of creativity lay in the broader context of social and psychological aspects of life, not just education.
Potential limitations to the fostering of creativity in education were identified by Craft (2008) who argued there were difficulties of terminology, conflicts between policy and practice, curriculum organisation, and a centrally controlled pedagogy. Craft believed creativity was ‘not necessarily seen as having universal relevance and value.’
According to Jackson (2006), the emphasis placed on academic success and attaining academic credentials operated in conjunction with New Labours neo-liberal discourses. Jackson argued some pupils she termed
‘Ladds and Laddettes’ resisted and engaged in behaviour that included an
‘uncool to work’ aspect, so measures to improve standards encouraged
‘laddish’ attitudes. Emerging models of creative education such as Creative Partnerships arguably targeted such pupils in an attempt to ‘re-engage the disengaged’, particularly in areas of disadvantage. As such, New Labours ambition for social and economic regeneration within a Neo-liberal framework may have been constructively resisted by some young people within the education system as suggested by Jackson. Following this
argument, interventionist programmes such as Creative Partnerships would, for some pupils, still come under the auspices of a pedagogic authority. By contrast, Galton (2009) argued artists working within the Creative Partnerships programme were able to motivate students with ‘anti-learning dispositions’.