Mobilizing Creativity: Democratic and Humanizing Approaches to Creativity in the Classroom
Abstract: While much creativity scholarship has focused on internal, psychological, psychometric, individualistic, and giftedness applications—the realities of creative work and practice through history have gone beyond this, toward social, contextual and inclusive spaces. Recent years have seen research extend into these social realms. From personal avocations to social applications of creativity, from a focus on creative process to a cultural and collaborative value of situated contexts, creativity, by nature, has pushed back on oppressive or marginalizing norms and standards in education—which makes it an ally for causes of educational equity and social justice. Further, as digital technologies have shifted the way we work and think, there are implications for creative systems in education. In this paper, we consider the intersections of creativity with democratic and humanizing educational practices to model a new segment of creativity we call Mobilizing Creativity. Mobilizing Creativity brings together holistic humanizing practices with social aspects of democratic practices to foster creativity for causes of social change, educational equity, and personal fulfillment. We explore this idea by situating it in a scholarly review of creativity and democratic and humanizing practices to suggest its importance for education. We also extend these ideas to consider how they increasingly overlap with issues of technology and education.