The sixth meeting of this global research project shall explore the many facets of creative engagement with children. Grounded in an inter-disciplinary perspective and with reference to historical and contemporary representations of childhood, this project will examine the complex issues which surround the notion and practices of creative engagement in the context of pedagogy and the curriculum, and in the face of frequently instrumental institutional imperatives. More generally, our work 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 four focus areas:
1. Creativity, Engagement and Education
* How do various disciplines define the concept of engagement?
* What is creativity in theory and practice? What is creative education? Can creative engagement be taught?
* Engaging with, engagement for?
* What does engagement mean for teachers and for children?
* Creative engagement in the areas of planning, resourcing, organisation, management and assessment
* Good practice, classroom examples, and effective strategies for promoting creativity within and across curriculum subjects
2. 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 and television: visual literacy
* traditional literacy's and creativity: what are they and how do they fit in the visualage?
* 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 - eg spiritual/existential intelligence * Pedagogy, curricular and extra-curricula approaches
* Integrative case studies and examples of team based teaching
* Creativity in a crowded curriculum
* Education, entertainment or edutainment?
* Teachers, creativity and professional development
* How to analyze and describe creative practice
* Institutions, education and designing systems to develop children's learning in the 21st century.
3. Critical and Cultural Thinking and Children
* What is critical thinking? Is it the same as critical literacy?
* What is the nature of engagement with critical thinking before school?
* 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 first world rise of the far right
Christian education movement and the effect on critical thinking and engagement
* Types of critical thinking
* cultural contexts of critical thinking
4. Engagement, Skills and Life Issues
* humour and its 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, spiritual, education
* 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
* 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 be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 15th January 2010. If your paper is accepted for presentation at the conference, an 8 page draft paper should be submitted by Friday 28th May 2010.
300 word abstracts should be submitted to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order: author(s), affiliation, email address, title of abstract, body of abstract
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:
philfitz@uow.edu.au 
