Whether schools help or hinder creativity is a topic of vibrant, international debate. Some contend that the focus on structure, rote learning and standardised assessments associated with formal education stifles children’s creativity. Others argue that creativity, much like numeracy or literacy, is a skill that can be taught, and educational settings provide optimal contexts for children to learn creative skills. With creativity increasingly recognised as a critical skill of the twenty-first century and formal education reaching more children across the globe, understanding the impact of schools on its development is critical. We suggest that much of the discourse on this topic has a narrow focus, precluding a global perspective. Here, we take a step back to integrate important but disparately presented research strands on education and creativity, to inform this debate. We first synthesize what we know about creativity and education, before presenting work on different areas—either directly or indirectly assessing creativity in educational contexts—including the relationship between creativity and academic achievement, classroom infrastructure and experiences, developmental slumps, teachers’ perspectives on creative children and research on culturally and educationally diverse populations. Reviewing research from these approaches shows that the relationship is nuanced and requires careful interpretation—while some research showcases the positive impact schooling can have on children’s creative development, other work, including from culturally and educationally diverse populations, shows how school experiences could be detrimental in this regard. We finish by summarising and integrating these research strands before making suggestions for future research.

学校是促进还是阻碍创造力，是一个充满活力的国际辩论话题。一些人认为，与正规教育相关的对结构、死记硬背和标准化评估的关注扼杀了儿童的创造力。其他人则认为，创造力，就像算术或识字一样，是一种可以教授的技能，而教育环境为孩子们学习创造性技能提供了最佳环境。随着创造力越来越被认为是 21 世纪的一项关键技能，正规教育惠及全球越来越多的儿童，了解学校对其发展的影响至关重要。我们认为，关于这个主题的大部分讨论都具有狭窄的关注点，排除了全球视角。在这里，我们退后一步，整合了关于教育和创造力的重要但呈现不同的研究方向，为这场辩论提供信息。我们首先综合我们对创造力和教育的了解，然后介绍不同领域的工作——直接或间接评估教育环境中的创造力——包括创造力与学术成就之间的关系、课堂基础设施和经验、发展低迷、教师对有创造力的孩子的看法以及对文化和教育多样性人群的研究。回顾这些方法的研究表明，这种关系是微妙的，需要仔细解释——虽然一些研究展示了学校教育对儿童创造力发展的积极影响，但其他工作，包括来自文化和教育多元化人群的研究，表明学校经历在这方面可能是有害的。最后，我们总结和整合这些研究方向，然后为未来的研究提出建议。