The initial inspiration for this collection came from a three-day workshop on creativity and cultural education that took place during the Fifth Warwick International Early Years Conference (2005). During this workshop, delegates from around the world drew on their various national and international perspectives to discuss and debate how best to understand children's creativity. Although there was substantial agreement that existing theoretical accounts and explanations were profoundly unsatisfactory, at the end of the workshop, delegates were left with more questions than answers:

What is the relationship between the development of thinking and the development of creativity?

How should we accept that children's play is synonymous with creativity, and if not, how should be understand the relationship between the two?

What is the role of adults, the environment, culture and education?

Do we need a new dieoretical framework or frameworks to explain creativity, or is it sufficient to define creative thinking in terms of existing theories of children 's cognition?