Creativity and performativity policies in primary school cultures

Abstract

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.

Acknowledgements

The research on which this article was based (Primary Teacher Identity, Commitment and Career in Performative Cultures (PTICC) 2005–2007—Award Reference: RES‐000‐23‐0748) was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, whose support is gratefully acknowledged. We are also extremely grateful for the helpful and critical comments of two anonymous referees. The article was also based on research carried out in the Creativity and Performativity—CAPITAL project funded by ESRC (Award Reference: RES‐000‐23‐1281) conducted 2006–2008.

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