This autumn we want to unpick some of the confusion and conflation that happens in the public policy discourse around two important things: the arts and creativity. We are starting off with a piece developed from the section on creativity in the 2023 The Arts in Schools: Foundations for the Future report, written by Pauline Tambling and Sally Bacon and published by A New Direction, supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation1. We think it is helpful to make clear the distinction between the two, and to highlight why ignoring this distinction can be problematic.
The creativity debate – spanning all subjects – has never been satisfactorily resolved. The tension between whether education should focus primarily on acquiring knowledge or on the development of creative skills and thinking is at the heart of this debate, along with how both approaches can be tested. But there has been another developing tension – or rather conflation and confusion – between arts and creativity, and this has become increasingly problematic in recent years.
General interest in the purpose of education and schooling was first properly prompted by James Callaghan, then Labour Prime Minister, in his 1976 Ruskin College speech on education, which called for a great debate about a core curriculum, better accountability and more public engagement with education policy.2 Given that since the Callaghan speech there has been much more focus on the link between education and the economy, it seems strange that education policy makers have preferred to focus on knowledge transfer. This was even more pronounced between 2010 and 2014 when what could be tested became seen as synonymous with ‘what works’.
By contrast, employers, when surveyed, tend to look for different things in new recruits and graduate applicants, and routinely cite attributes such as resilience, communication, adaptability, problem-solving, creativity and teamwork: qualities beyond grades in public examinations. In 2019 the Durham Commission on Creativity and Education reported that according to “The Economic Graph (a digital representation of the global economy based on 590 million LinkedIn members, 50 thousand skills, 30 million companies, 20 million open jobs, and 84 thousand schools) creativity is the second most desirable competency in an employee”.3
Unhelpfully, compared with testing knowledge of facts, these capabilities are harder to measure. Over time subjects that are seen as unambiguous or obviously ‘right or wrong’ have edged out subjects which aim to elicit young people’s ideas and opinions and hone creative and technical skills through experimentation. Despite that, when faced with candidates with the same level of qualifications employers will often look for these so-called soft skills.
Good arts teaching almost always involves encouraging creative thinking, as well as skills development, sharing and exchange, and understanding the artistic work of others. The work of professional artists is ever-changing, contestable and rarely leads to a clear set of answers. Rather than solving questions or closing down discussion, they often complicate and generate more debate. In our view the skill of the arts teacher is less about passing on knowledge, and more about drawing out ideas and helping young people to express them in particular forms of arts practice.
When young people commit to their own arts practice in a chosen medium they are better placed to respond to the work of other artists past and present. Arts teachers negotiate the tricky path of cultural value, and whose culture we are including and excluding, and how to teach in a way that accords value to young people’s efforts. As was observed in the original GulbenkianFoundation Arts in Schools report in 1982, “If we want to promote independent, critical and creative thinking, we shall be working against ourselves if we try to achieve these things by methods of teaching which stifle initiative and promote the acceptance of some authoritarian fiat of a body of elders or establishment.”4
There is a question of whether the arts are always creative or have a special role in creative learning. The writers of the 1982 Arts in Schools report were clear that creative thinking is not unique to the arts and that “It makes just as much sense to talk of creativity in science, engineering, mathematics, and philosophy as in the arts …”. The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment introduced the PISA 2022 Creative Thinking assessment measure which ranks student “capacity to engage productively in the generation, evaluation and improvement of ideas that can result in original and effective solutions, advances in knowledge and impactful expressions of imagination”.5 The UK did not adopt this measure.6
There is general agreement that the terms creativity and the arts are not interchangeable. Creativity is an approach to learning (that can also be applied in the real world), rather than being a subject in itself, and is not particular to the arts. Nor is all arts education creative per se. Many aspects of the arts require things other than creativity: for example, the practice and rehearsal for a play or orchestral performance are often repetitive and restricted in the extent of improvisation or interpretation.7 The arts are not always about producing something novel; they can be about reproducing/replicating something precisely – performing the script the same way every time or making the mug much the same way every time. Copying is actually integral to many art forms.
In the 2023 Arts in Schools consultation roundtable meetings we heard from teachers for whom creativity and creative learning approaches are important. They stressed the role of the arts in collaborative learning – so much of what happens in schools is about individual achievement, whereas in workplaces we often work in teams – and in fostering problem-solving, imagination and originality.
The Cultural Learning Alliance now has a Capabilities Framework with sets out the seven benefits of studying arts subjects and which brings clarity in understanding the place of creativity in relation to arts subjects: creativity it is one of seven capabilities developed through studying the arts. The Framework articulates the personal and societal benefits of studying expressive arts subjects and provides the language to say where creativity fits and why it is important, and why the two terms cannot be conflated. As we start to map the findings of four new Rapid Evidence Reviews (for Art & Design, Dance, Drama and Music8) onto the Capabilities Framework, we are taking decades of evidence and research and using it to reframe the value of arts education, making deliberate choices in describing seven distinct and evidenced benefits of studying the arts: agency, wellbeing, communication, empathy, collaboration, creativity and interpretation.
We’ve had several decades during which the arguments in favour of arts subjects have been about everything except what the arts actually do (the arts make you better at maths, or at science etc.). We can now confidently lean into an evidenced value narrative which asserts precisely what they do in and of themselves and this is a significant gamechanger for the sector. A by-product of this work is that it has helped us to better describe the relationship between arts subjects and creativity.
Expressive arts subjects have a distinct contribution to make towards nurturing creativity in children and within society (as the Durham Commission correctly identified9) – and creativity is one of seven powerful capabilities that can make a distinct contribution to children’s personal development. It is a virtuous circle, and easily misunderstood. We have to be very precise and clear on the distinction between the two or the policy and funding landscape will continue to run the risk of conflation and therefore confusion. We have seen huge investment in creative learning initiatives in recent years, during which time arts subjects have been dramatically eroding in secondary schools, to the extent that more than 40% of them no longer offer drama or music GCSE. The language of arts education subjects in schools is distinct from that of the creative industries and we need to get sharper at code switching between the two.
The creative industries sector doesn’t necessarily need its own language reflected in schools, except in careers education, but it does need a broad and balanced education system which values and supports the knowledge, skills, opportunities and experiences afforded by arts subjects if it is to resolve its skills gaps, grow its diversity, and build a skilled workforce. And we need a shared understanding that creativity and the arts are connected but not interchangeable terms if we are to approach both in appropriate ways – and in ways that don’t elevate one over the other through policy and funding.
- The Arts in Schools: Foundations for the Future (2023). Written by Pauline Tambling and Sally Bacon. (A New Direction and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.) ↩︎
- James Callaghan (18 October 1976). A rational debate based on the facts (Oxford). http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/speeches/1976ruskin.html ↩︎
- Durham Commission on Creativity & Education (2019). Creative competencies and employment skills, p. 35. Arts Council England and Durham University. ↩︎
- The Arts in Schools: Principles, practice and provision (1989 edition). Edited by Ken Robinson. ↩︎
- PISA 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment. Creative Thinking assessment. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). ↩︎
- Governments opt out of international creativity tests (28 November 2019). Arts Professional. ↩︎
- In the model of five creative habits there is the habit of discipline and the sub-habit of crafting and improving. Arts Council of Wales and Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE)
https://arts.wales/sites/default/files/2018-12/Creative_Habits_of_the_Mind.pdf ↩︎ - The Rapid Evidence Reviews for Expressive Arts subjects have been developed in collaboration with the RSC, the Midlands4Cities PhD placements scheme and CLA, with Professor Pat Thomson, University of Nottingham and CLA Senior Evidence Associate. ↩︎
- Durham Commission on Creativity & Education (2019). Creative competencies and employment skills, p. 23. Arts Council England and Durham University. ↩︎
