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The influence of policy texts upon learners depends largely on how much influence such texts wield. Policy discourses are one of the main means whereby policy texts, in the settings in which they operate, influence the value, the implementation and the inscribing of those texts on learners. The Economic and Social Research Council-based research project described in this article examines the ways in which Lyotard's performative practices affect the identities of primary school learners and how they are constructed by Key Stage exam process; it also examines performative progression through a system of learning targets. It uses a Foucauldian approach to show how learners are influenced by performativity discourses and how they take part in constructing these performative identities. Employing an ethnographic approach, it illustrates how Foucault's social relations characteristic of extra/intra/inter dependencies is explicated through governmentality and the construction of knowledge and subjectivity, which act as major relays through which learners' performative identities become embedded. (Contains 2 tables.)

Making learning relevant involves many aspects of teaching such as attention to levels of maturity, individual inclinations, emotional, physical, aesthetic and cognitive activity and group dynamics. However, making learning relevant is not only a teacher led activity, for learners make activities relevant by the identification of connections with learning activities from their experience or their imagination. They make learning meaningful. That learners are engaged in these processes of identification of the self with knowledge and learning processes is well documented in the literature of child development and learning theory, and teachers base much of their practice on this knowledge. However, where it is celebrated by teachers, allowed time, given respect and valued, a climate for nurturing learner creativity is established. This empirical research project identified primary school learners' understanding of creative learning and the meaningfulness or value attached to the experiences were seen through focusing on the quality of their personal relationship to creative learning, the development of a learning identity and their identity status as pedagogic participants.

Large-scale research projects, conducted in a cross-European context, are increasingly attractive to educational researchers and policy-makers. However, this form of comparative research across cultures brings problems concerning the standardization of data collection and analysis, particularly where ethnographic research is concerned, as it prioritizes a full range of qualitative research strategies. This paper outlines the use of a universal model and the approaches recently taken by two research teams and contrasts these with another recent nine-partner comparative European study that used ethnographic methods. We then describe the analytical procedures used in the project, which encouraged participant observation and individual researcher interpretation in order to generate grounded accounts and outline how they were culturally sensitive and meaningful to research teams who used varied analytical approaches. However, this raised difficult issues for the "final" analysis and the production of a loosely coupled research report. Our pragmatic solution was a process of "qualitative synthesis" whereby individual partner reports were collated by the Project Director and treated as data and a grounded theory approach was applied to generate tentative theory in respect of creative learning. The paper concludes by arguing that data generated by a loosely coupled approach to qualitative comparative research which uses a wide range of data collection methods can be effectively analysed with a qualitative synthesis. (Contains 1 table.)

Cultures of performativity in English primary schools refer to systems and relationships of: target-setting; Ofsted inspections; school league tables constructed from pupil test scores; performance management; performance related pay; threshold assessment; and advanced skills teachers. Systems which demand that teachers "perform" and in which individuals are made accountable. These policy measures, introduced to improve levels of achievement and increased international economic competitiveness, have, potentially, profound implications for the meaning and experience of primary teachers' work; their identities; their commitment to teaching; and how they view their careers. At the same time as policies of performativity are being implemented there is now increasing advocacy for the adoption and advancement of "creativity" policies within primary education. These major developments are being introduced in the context of a wide range of social/educational policies also aimed at the introduction of creativity initiatives into schools and teaching. This complex policy context has major implications for the implementation process and also primary teachers' work and how they experience it. The ethnographic research reported in this article has been conducted over a school year in six English primary schools in order to analyse the effects of creativity and performativity policy initiatives at the implementation stage. The article concludes by arguing that in the schools of our research the drive to raise pupil test scores involves both performative and creative strategies and that this critical mediation goes beyond amelioration toward a more complex view of professional practice. Implementing creativity and performativity policies provided important contextual influencing factors on teacher commitment. These were: curriculum coverage and task completion; and providing psychic rewards of teaching. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)

There has recently been a call for more pedagogic comparative research to counter the dominance of structural and policy led studies. At the same time there is also a necessity to provide alternative comparative research to that concerned with global standardizing performance and performativity strategies. The research, on which this paper is based, fulfils both these aims by investigating creative teaching and learning in nine European countries at classroom level using ethnographic methods in a small number of sites for each partner. The research partners share a common discourse of pedagogy that we are calling creative teaching and learning, a common humanitarian discourse and the ethnographic methodology for the research was a strong framework to counter differing cultural approaches to research. The article analytically characterizes some significant strategies used by teachers, the creative learning experienced and the meaning that the experiences had for the students involved. We conclude that this research has laid the basis for a common discourse for further research in a comparative approach that will investigate commonalities to build an understanding of international creative pedagogy and investigate differences to enhance the conceptualization of it. (Contains 1 table.)

Ethnography derives from traditional anthropology, where time in the field is needed to discern both the depth and complexity of social structures and relations. Funding bodies, seeking quick completion, might see ethnographies as unlikely to satisfy 'value for money' criteria, in spite of the rewards to be gained from time-consuming 'thick description', and rich analysis that gets close to the lived experience of participants in social settings. However, ethnographic time need not only be perceived of as a lengthy and sustained period in the field prior to writing. The authors suggest that there are different forms of ethnographic research time, each with specific features, and drawing on their experience of ethnographic research they exemplify them. They conclude by suggesting that the selection of the appropriate form is dependent on the contingent circumstances of the research and the main purpose of the research, and suggest strategies for developing this work in contemporary circumstances.

The distinction and relationship between teaching creatively and teaching for creativity identified in the report from the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education ( NACCCE, 1999), is examined by focusing on empirical research from an early years school, known for its creative approach. The examination uses four characteristics of creativity and pedagogy identified by Peter Woods (1990): relevance, ownership, control and innovation, to show the interdependence of the NACCCE distinctions. We conclude that although the NACCCE distinction between teaching creatively and teaching for creativity has been useful as an analytical tool, it may, at the same time, have dichotomised an integrated practice and we suggest that a more useful distinction for the study of creative pedagogies would be the relationship between teaching creatively and creative learning.

In this article, we explore distinctions between creative practice and a practice which fosters creativity, drawing on case study data from an English nursery and a first school. We suggest that, in practice, these distinctions are very blurred.

Argues that a humanist discourse prevalent in teacher relations with students, colleagues, and advisor/inspectors has been challenged by a "performativity" discourse that, among other things, distances teachers from students and creates a dependency culture in opposition to previous mutual and intimate relations. Concludes that the change in relations is an indicator of fundamental change to social relations. (50 references) (Author/PKP)

Studies the reaction of English primary school teachers to an inspection by the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED). Argues that trauma was produced by a clash between teachers' humanistic values and OFSTED's technicist values that teachers felt attacked their professionalism. Note strategies that teachers adopt to avoid repeated traumas. (DSK)