This text offers a comprehensive analysis of the concept of the modern creative and imaginative child in Western education. Drawing on archived sources and historical works, it reframes childhood creativity as a social, cultural, and scientific construction, asking how our thinking and acting toward the creative child have been produced…

This book provides a fresh approach to motivation in primary school children by exploring the role of metaphor and symbol in language and art as a means of expressing insights developed through learning. The book investigates and transcends Piaget's dominant child developmental theories and considers alternative theories from psychiatry, not least…

Children's theatre in the UK is thriving. Debates about why children should watch theatre and what educational, emotional and expressive benefits it can provide inform cultural policy on education. Children aged 4-11 are increasingly taken to watch tailored theatre performances, yet there has been virtually no reflective research on what theatre…

Artistic giftedness in 217 4-, 6-, 8-, and 10-year olds was investigated from a neo-Piagetian perspective, which articulates the increasingly complex structures for representing spatial relations in drawing during middle childhood. Gifted children structured spatial relations, composed their drawings, and used color similarly to average children,…

The study evaluated a theory of gender specialization by J. H. Block that postulates that gender differences in personality and cognitive functioning are closely linked, both arising from the same sex-differentiated socialization experiences. This study tested the theory as it applies to creativity in children. Subjects were 244 children in grades…

Maintains that assessment in the arts often is avoided in the early childhood years because it appears to be incompatible with a child-centered philosophy. Asserts that reflective assessment procedures can inform early childhood teachers about instruction in arts education. (CFR)