Privatizing creation: neoliberal creativity in the language classroom

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although often seen as places of culture, cultivation and creativity, language courses borrow the language of creativity for test-centered practices. Research in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology has long recognized language courses as sites for the legitimation of neoliberal ideals that emphasize language as global, individual, and economic, human capital for the global market. Yet research in education often focuses on language education as building student identities, ignoring how it prepares students for participation in an affluent ‘creative class.’ This paper aims to bring a more critical lens on discourses of creativity in the classroom. It explores how neoliberal ideology is realized in teacher development literature on creative management, and it investigates how this commercial creativity affects the language curriculum and assessment in a New England High School, ending with a call to a more critical, communal creativity.