Creativity plays an increasingly important role in our economic, personal and civic lives. Innovation is integral to how we live our lives while creativity contributes positively to our wellbeing and to the good-functioning of democratic societies (Likar et al, 2015). Increasing focus on creativity and critical thinking in our broader societies has resulted in the emergence of educational policies (see OECD, 2019) and measures (such as PISA 2022 Creative Thinking assessment) to increase awareness and enhance its implementation across education systems internationally. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) recognizes the importance of child rights not only in listening to voice(s), but also in creating approaches to enable and realise their voice(s) in all aspects of their lives. Schools and teachers play a critical role in realizing child rights in/through/with pedagogy in classrooms.

The main aim of this research was to explore teacher perspectives of the role of creativity in education, with specific focus on how it is defined, understood and employed across the Irish education system. This paper specifically focuses on teacher perspectives on the opportunities and challenges to using creativity as a democratic pedagogical practice for enabling child voice(s), participation and agency in the classroom.

This study adopted an in-depth qualitative methodology drawing on semi-structured interviews to explore the role of creativity in education. A total of 11 teachers (9 female/2 male) working across the education system (primary/post-primary schools) participated in the research and thematic analysis was undertaken to identify key themes and topics emergent from the data.

Findings from this study identified the possibilities for child voice(s) and rights in/through/with pedagogy when adopting creativity in the classroom. Emergent themes included the importance of placing the learner at the heart of the learning, collaborating with children/young people as a community of learners, valuing and sharing their ideas, opening possibilities and opportunities for learning beyond curriculum, and shaping their sense of belonging and identities as active agents and citizens of the world. However, adopting creativity also presented challenges to including child/youth voice(s) including the time required to meaningfully do so, tensions between letting go or holding on to the locus of pedagogical power in the classroom, and challenging hegemonic pedagogical expectations or ‘going against the norm’. Findings from the CreatEd study indicate the transformative possibilities for embedding creative pedagogy in classrooms as an everyday approach to engaging children/young people in/through/with their rights and voice(s) in a democratic and inclusive learning environment.

Keywords: Education, Creativity, Child-rights, Pedagogy, Teaching & Learning, Belonging.