Creativity in an Emergent and Improvisational Global Educational Environment

Abstract

This chapter is anchored in European research and development (R&D) projects in the field of improvisational approaches to creativity and arts integration in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics (STEAM) education. These are implemented as globally co-created educational science operas, which are creative processes through which science and art educators facilitate the creation of original science-inspired operas in schools. This pedagogical approach constitutes a case study in which I explore and question imaginative, innovative environments as educational futures. Contributing to sustainable educational responses to the unpredictable challenges that the global educational environment faces requires an ethical understanding which includes other-than-humans, both living and non-living, in a relational creative process.I describe my experiences and tensions with the management of a portfolio of creative R&D projects in a university of applied sciences as a middle leader and I outline the role of management in ensuring that ethical educational futures emerge responsively through the generative potential of creativity. From this perspective, I discuss quality standards and societal impact as current-day political requirements in higher education. I argue that they have yet to be reconciled with sustainability goals through overarching institutional strategies with regards to acknowledging specific contexts and conditions within which impact emerges, consistent integration of R&D initiatives in higher education’s study programmes, and intra-actions between profession-oriented study programmes and the practice field of schools.