In the last 20 years creativity has been recognised as an attribute of human capital for economic and social good, by governments, industry and educationalists. Yet, intentional teaching for creativity in universities has been found to be limited or 'accidental'. Within the fashion industry creativity is usually associated with the product and designers but this professional doctorate found that creativity was essential for senior fashion business managers. The principal aim of fashion business courses is to prepare students as managers in the fashion industry and so it would be a reasonable expectation that fashion business graduates are also prepared to be creative.
Review of the literature indicate that creativity is varied and complex. There are first and second-generation understandings of creativity which determine how creativity is defined, how creativity occurs, what affects creativity and the benefits and dangers of creativity. Conversely, creative pedagogy literature reflects a singular, second generation understanding of creativity. These differences in academic thought raise questions about how fashion business educators navigate through these contradictory approaches when teaching for creativity.
By exploring the pedagogies used to enhance and develop students' creativity on university fashion business courses in the UK, the research identifies how fashion business educators teach for creativity and why. As the desired information is individual and personal, the research approach is qualitative. Interviews were identified as the means to explore and gather the thick and rich and data required.
Implicit theories among the respondents were found to determine beliefs about creativity and resulted in a myriad of approaches to teaching for creativity. A desire to teach for creativity was identified but limited by a lack of knowledge and discourse about creativity and university systems and structures. These limitations are discussed with reference to Erica McWilliam's theories of creative capacity building and highlight that the practice of teaching for creativity on fashion business courses varies with theory. The findings of this research extend McWilliam's theory and inform pedagogical policy and practice. The need for greater knowledge and discourse about the subject was identified and that management support and direction was required to enhance teacher education for teaching for creativity
