8th Global Conference: Creative Engagements: Thinking with Children (July 2012, Oxford: United Kingdom)

8th Global Conference Creative Engagements: Thinking with Children

Friday 29th June 2012 ? Sunday 1st July 2012 Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom

Call for Papers:
The eighth meeting of this global research project seeks explore the concept of genuine 'engagement' within the overarching framework of 'creativity'. Recognizing the many facets of 'creative engagement' and the ideals and ideas associated with children, childhood and learning, this project is grounded in an inter-disciplinary perspective and research. Some of the broader areas of reference have been, and continue to be historical and contemporary representations of childhood, the complex issues surrounding the notion and practices of creative engagement in the context of pedagogy and the curriculum, changing technologies and frequently instrumental institutional imperatives and changes. More generally, this project will also address the role of creativity in social interaction, with particular reference to children's development of life skills, autonomy and independence in an increasingly complex and demanding world.

Papers, presentations, reports and workshops are invited on any of the following five focus areas:

1. The Creative Environmental Space
~ What spaces engender or inhibit creativity?
~What is the nature of the architecture of a creative space?
~From Theory to Practice: Case studies of creative spaces in actionWhat will the creative spaces of the future look like? 

~Children's views on creative spaces

2. The Creative 'Inner' Space
~What is the role of memory in creativity?
~How is the concept of creativity 'framed' in various disciplines?
~What are the origins of these forces and forms of thinking, and links to creative thinking?
~What is the relationship between creativity and divergent thinking?
~How are these developed and nurtured?
~How do various disciplines understand these forms of thought, and praxis?
~What are the similarities/differences in understanding between the related research disciplines?
~How can these be fostered in a world dominated by measurement, outcomes and benchmarks?
~Children's views on creativity.

3. Creativity, Engagement and Education
~How do various disciplines define the concept of engagement?
~What is the nature of genuine learning, genuine engagement with learning and their relationship to creativity?
~What is creativity in theory and practice? Whatis creative education? Can creative engagement be
taught?
~Engaging with, engagement for, and for whom?
~What does engagement mean for teachers, children and classroom practice?
~How does genuine engagement and creative learning relate to the architecture and physicality of the classroom environment?
~Creative engagement in the areas of planning, resourcing, organization, management and
assessment.
~Good practice, classroom examples, and effective strategies for promoting creativity within and across curriculum subjects.

4. Creativity, Pedagogy and Curriculum
~Inter-disciplinary approaches to creative engagement in teaching and curricula.
~Historical and contemporary representations of childhood and adolescence: art, film and
literature.
~The future role of text, the visual media as form of critical appraisal, developing creativity and children's engagement.
~Children, creativity and visual literacy.
~Traditional literacies and creativity: what are they and how do they fit in the visual age?
~Assessing Cziksentmihaly's work, and in particular, the notion of 'flow'; how this is
understood by different disciplines.
~The role and nature multiple intelligences (re: Howard Gardner) in developing creativity.
~Are there more intelligences than Gardner's 7.5 ? e.g. spiritual/existential intelligence, and how do these 'fit' with creativity?
~Pedagogy, curricular and extra-curricula approaches.
~Integrative case studies and examples of team based teaching.
~Creativity in a crowded curriculum.
~Education, entertainment or edutainment, and the 'fit' with creativity?
~Teachers, creativity and professional development.
~How to assess, analyze and describe creative practice?
~Institutions, education and designing systems to develop children's learning in the 21st century

5. Critical and Cultural Thinking and Children
~What is the optimal macro and micro-culture for developing creativity?
~What are the limits of cultural development for creativity?
~What are the enablers and inhibitors of creativity?
~What is critical thinking? Is it the same as critical literacy?
~What is the nature of engagement with critical thinking before school?
~Facilitating creativity: With what, who and when?
~What is the role of the 'significant other' in developing critical engagement at home and in
school?
~What are the conditions that foster critical thinking at home and then in the school years?
~The  rise of the far right Christian education movement and the effect on critical thinking and engagement.
~Types of critical thinking and their relationship to creativity.
~Cultural contexts of critical thinking.
~What are the links between self-esteem and creativity?
~What is the nature of, and links between teaching creatively and teaching for creativity?

6.Engagement, Skills and Life Issues
~Emotion and links to creativity.
~Engaging in intercultural and human development education with children.
~The role of parents in developing or fostering creativity and engagement with life and learning.
~Engaging in intercultural and human development education with children.
~The nature of school as an enabler or inhibitor of creativity or engagement with learning as a whole.
~The idea of moral, values and spiritual, education as creative experiences.
~The role of play (in all forms) and the concept of creativity.
~Children creatively engaging each other: communication and cooperation; problem solving; play and social issues ? ethnicity, immigration etc.
~Creatively engaging the disabled.
~Exploring children's needs, wants, wishes, desires and hopes.
~The nature of natural learning theories.
~Developing antinomy and independence.
~Developing life skills, social issues and education for citizenship.

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers
will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 13th January 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday11th May 2012. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or
RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e)body of abstract, f) up to 10
keywords. E-mails should be entitled: CE8 Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs
Phil Fitzsimmons
Faculty of Education
The University of Wollongong
Australia
Email: [email protected]

Dr Rob Fisher
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Priory House, Wroslyn Road,
Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
Email: [email protected]

The conference is part of the 'At the Interface' series of research projects run by ID.Net. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore
various discussions which are innovative and challenging. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into 20- 25 page chapters for publication in a themed dialogic ISBN hard copy volume.

For further details of the project, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/education/creative-engagements-thinking-
with-children/

For further details of the conference, please
visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/education/creative-engagements-thinking-
with-children/call-for-papers/