Challenging institutional conventions and forming a voice through creativity

• Informal settings supports creativity in school.
• Some pupils’ creative experiences are formed in interstitial social spaces.
• A supportive social community leads to more courage in pupils expressing themselves.
• School conventions have influence on the extent of and which kind of creative expressions are acknowledged.

This article explores and discusses examples of students’ everyday creativity that seem to be overlooked by teachers but are acknowledged by ‘peers’ in a 9th Grade (age 15–16) at a Danish free school. Creativity emerged as part of the everyday student interactions at school in ‘in-between’ social spaces, outside the formal teaching zones. Creative activities took place in the interstitial zones of time and space, where they gave voice to those students whose voice is not always heard in the formal teaching context. Creativity occurred also among students as a way to challenge institutional conditions and this practice gave them recognition by their peers. The argument is being made that students’ interactions in these zones draw on other forms of knowledge and ways of performing than those used in structured teaching zones. The creativity expressed in interstitial zones contributes to forming a diversity of expressive modes, and allows diverse students to explore their contributions by experimenting and deliberately positioning themselves to be evaluated by ‘socially important others’. Obtaining these experiences as a shared sense making requires spaces in the school context and a recognition of value of the interstitial zones in time, place, and relations.