English teachers encourage writing that opens college students to transformative learning through soul work as John Dirkx describes and develops the concept of soul work in his theory of transformative learning. This soul work involves the conscious attempt to bring to the surface myths, images, and metaphors from the unconscious through…

Background/Context: Human rights education has proliferated in the past four decades and can be found in policy discussions, textbook reforms, and grassroots initiatives across the globe. This article specifically explores the role of creativity and imagination in human rights education (HRE) by focusing on a case study of one non-governmental…

Although previous research has explored the effects of various environmental influences on young children's play, the influence of toys has rarely been examined. This paucity of toy studies is due to a lack of a scientifically constructed observation system to evaluate the impact of play materials across developmental domains. The purpose of this…

In order for students to learn well, someone or something must capture their interest. Novelty and intellectual challenges are good approaches for gaining attention. Imaginative strategies include storytelling, discrepant events, dressing in costumes, music, dynamic video clips, comic strips, humor, models, puppets, the element of surprise,…

The United States is competing in a dynamic global economy in which two assets--a skilled, versatile and highly adaptable workforce and the capacity for creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship--provide a decisive edge. To succeed in today's economic climate, the U.S. needs a well-educated, technically proficient workforce in all sectors and…

One of the essential ingredients of high-performing individuals, teams and organisations is creativity. To be creative means releasing talent and imagination. It also means the ability to take risks and, in some cases, necessitates standing outside the usual or accepted frames of reference. Creative people push the boundaries; they seek new ways…

This paper analyses the contribution to creativity, culture and community of disabled children provided by the work of the theatre company Oily Cart and their production "Something in the Air?" In the paper, we present a radical humanist conception of disability and creativity. In order to explore disability and creativity we focus on a…

For almost a century, researchers have studied creative imagination, most typically that of children. This article reports on a study of the development of creative imagination of Chinese youths and its relation to the educational environment. Data consisted of 4,162 students from grades 4 through 12. Findings showed that students' creative…

This paper argues that material from dreams offers a resource within the social sphere that has potential for the practice of action research. The modern approach to dream interpretation, following Freud, has almost exclusively been situated at the level of the therapeutic dyad where the significance of dream material is circumscribed within…

This study examines life in a Montessori classroom, with special attention focused on spontaneous episodes of imaginary play. The goal is to better understand what is going on when children engage in imaginary play and how this play assists young learners in their development. This article examines three play episodes, each from a different area…

This project/report worked with three early childhood education centres who have adopted the Reggio Emilia philosophy of educational practice. Each centre works with children and parents in close collaboration and all the staff and centre management are committed to the project. The aim of this project was to work with each centre in developing…

This set of studies examined the ability of 3-year-olds to conceptualize multiple pretend identities with objects. Rather than relying on verbal response measures, as has been done in the past, children's creative and inferential pretend actions were used as indicators of their understanding. The common structure to all four studies was that…

We hypothesized that the qualities of play shown by children with autism reflect their impoverished experience of identifying with other people's attitudes and moving among person-anchored perspectives. On this basis, we predicted their play should manifest a relative lack of the social-developmental hallmarks that typify creative symbolic…

Real play--play that is initiated and directed by children and that bubbles up from within the child rather than being imposed by adults--has largely disappeared from the landscape of childhood in the United States. There are many reasons for this, such as the long hours spent in front of screens each day or in activities organized by adults. In…

Critical creativity is a paradigmatic synthesis linking critical social science with creative and ancient traditions. Our haiku summarises the essence of this three part paper. "Heavy feet of stone" describes the rationale for our creation of critical creativity. "Seeking transformation" sets out the background and methodology for our inductive,…