Unpacking K-12 Teachers’ Creative Identity

<p>Despite increasing emphasis on creativity as a core competency in K-12 education, limited research has examined how teachers understand their own creativity and how these perceptions shape their professional identities and instructional practices. Existing scholarship has largely focused on pedagogical strategies, curriculum design, and student outcomes, often overlooking the role of teachers’ beliefs, experiences, and self-perceptions. Addressing this gap, this study unpacks how K-12 teachers construct their creative identity and how this identity informs their approaches to teaching for creativity. Guided by a constructivist grounded theory methodology, this qualitative study explores the lived experiences on current K-12 teachers in Southern California. The participants vary across grade levels, subject areas, and years of experience. Participants were purposefully selected using a mixed sampling approach to ensure maximum variation. Sampling techniques used were convenience sampling, snowball sampling, and theoretical sampling. In total, 20 participants were recruited and participated in this study. Data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews examining teachers’ definitions of creativity, perceptions of their creative abilities, and classroom practice. Data analysis followed constant comparative methods, using initial, focused, and theoretical coding, supported by analytic memos to generate an emergent theoretical framework. Findings indicate that teacher creative identity is a dynamic, socially constructed process shaped by personal experiences, professional experiences, relational interactions, and institutional contexts. Four central themes emerged from the data: (a) Moving Beyond the Content; (b) Redefining Creativity Through Teaching; (c) Creativity as Professional Self-Care and; (d) Systemic Realities of Creativity. These themes reveal the multidimensional nature of teacher creative identity and serve as the empirical basis for the development of the Teacher Creative Identity (TCI) Framework. The TCI Framework frames creative identity as an interactional and developmental process situated within the dynamic interplay of personal beliefs, pedagogical goals, institutional expectations, and relational dynamics. The TCI framework offers a holistic lens for understanding how creative identity emerges, evolves, and is sustained through teaching practice. The study highlights the importance of supporting teacher creative identity development through teacher preparation, professional learning, and educational leadership practice that affirm teacher agency, promote reflective practice, and cultivate cultures in creative risk-taking. By centering teachers’ voices, this research contributes a nuanced understanding of creative identity in teaching and provides actionable implications for advancing creativity in K-12 education.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Education, PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Open Access Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

School of Educational Studies

Year dc:date.available

2026

Author dc:creator

• Mungia, Ariana

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dina Maramba
• Shamini Dias

• Education

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgu_etd/1117

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarship.claremont.edu:cgu_etd-2139