This article is published in International Journal of Education, Volume 88, March 2018
Norwegian parents’ perspective on environmental factors that influence creativity – An empirical grounding for future studies
Marte S. Gulliksen
Department of Visual and Performing Arts Education, Faculty of Humanities, Sports and Educational Sciences, University College of Southeast-Norway
Highlights

• Documenting children’s environment for creativity through parent interviews.
• Norwegian parents favour free-play and creativity as individual/cognitive activity.
• Exploring individual/cognitive vs social/cultural perspectives on creativity.
• Grounding future studies on creativity, culture and education.

Abstract
This article discuss environmental influence on children’s creativity through the perspective of Norwegian parents. Semi-structured parent interviews was collected to explore how they define creativity and construct their children’s environment. Results show that parents emphasise time and opportunity to free-play, as they see creativity ideally to be a self-initiated activity. Informants linked creativity to both internal (individual) and external (sociocultural) activities. Parents saw both activities as valuable, yet they tended to favour internal expression when constructing their children’s environment for creativity. Parents’ perceptions influence how children experience and interpret learning activities. Therefore, this knowledge on parents’ perspective is useful in future educational research on teaching for creativity. Further, this knowledge contribute to the knowledge base on creativity, culture and education.
Keywords
Creativity; Education; Environment; Culture; Semi-structured interviews
Read article here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0883035517318256

https://www.usn.no/studier/finn-studier/kunst-design-og-musikk/