Creativity is part of a current global policy paradigm in education. The present article examines aspects of one national version of this policy in practice, by looking at the ways student preferences for different types of classroom teaching in different subjects with different "spaces for creativity and self-realisation" are socially constructed and subjectively understood and valued. The analysis is developed from comparisons between teaching and learning practices and experiences in two different subjects; Swedish and General Science for students/pupils in the first year of the Swedish three-year upper-secondary school natural sciences programme. It describes difficulties with respect to the everyday realisation of creativity policy that are brought about by the presence of strong currents of performativity culture and considers what implications this might have for educational policy making. (Contains 1 figure, 3 tables, and 4 notes.)