ABSTRACT
The concept of creativity is contested and, as yet, imperfectly understood (Sternberg and Lubart, 1999; Osborne, 2003). Much current research is exploratory and little is currently written specifically about creative learning and teaching in the context of UK universities. Much of what does exist proceeds from the assumption that most students are capable of some creative work at some level; that creativity can contribute to the lives of individuals and societies; and that its encouragement among academics and students is a central part of universities’ missions. This chapter synthesises discussions involving academics in two universities in order to explore their perspectives on creativity and the curriculum. The relationship between these is critical to understanding what higher education needs to do to create the spaces within its curricula to promote students’ creativity. The diversity of views on these topics serves to illustrate the complexity of these concepts in practice. The structure of the study permits a number of comparative questions to be asked. For example, how much convergence or divergence is there in the views of lecturers in two very different institutions – a post-1992 university and a research-intensive Russell Group university; and between the disciplines that were represented?
