This work is marked by an underlying concern with individuals being productive in their creativity, in understanding, observing and measuring the abilities linked to creative performance, and to productive forms of creativity (e.g. invention and technological innovation, solutions to social problems).
When discussing creativity, in his 1950 text Creativity, Guilford focuses on the individual level, and, interested in observing, measuring and understanding individual differences, he looks at the idea of a creative personality - “a unique pattern of traits”, defined as “aptitudes, interests, attitudes, and temperamental qualities” which would be important to understand how creative results were produced (Guilford, 1950, p. 444) - with two main concerns in mind: i) how to better discover creative promise in children and youth; ii) how to promote the development of creative personalities. This provided a frame for the development of research agendas, methodologies and instruments (e.g. psychometrics) that could provide ways to differentiate and intervene.
Providing a systematic way of differentiating creative children using instruments designed with the white, western, middle class, able bodied child child in mind, these discourses become instrumental in reproducing lines of difference often used to justify the exclusion or discrimination of other children.
In which ways may this understanding of productive individual have supported systems of individual discipline, differentiation and exploitation that we see present still today.
PF