The impact of the school social environment on the development of creativity: a case study of high school students

Creativity, defined as the ability to generate new and contextually relevant ideas and solutions, is recognized as a key competency in education. It plays a crucial role in adapting to changes. We view creativity not as an innate trait but as a dynamic state influenced by the social environment, with a particular focus on the school setting. Sociological research examines the impact of the school environment on students' creativity, identifying factors that either foster or impede its development. However, these factors are often neither ranked by significance nor analyzed in relation to each other. To address this issue, we propose an interdisciplinary approach to analyzing the school environment, using Teresa Amabile's componential theory. This theory examines the creative process from a psychological perspective, emphasizing the importance of intrinsic motivation. Based on this approach, we identify three key environmental factors that promote creativity: (1) support for students' autonomy; (2) encouragement of creativity by school administrators and other stakeholders; and (3) the availability of necessary resources for creative work. By autonomy, we refer to the ability to make independent decisions and regulate one's behavior while experiencing a sense of inner freedom. For our study, we selected two classes with varying levels of support for students' autonomy and compared their creativity levels using adapted versions of Torrance and Guilford tests. Students in the class with a higher degree of autonomy exhibited greater creativity.