Navigating Dilemmas: university educators’ journeys in creativity teaching

Creativity is widely recognised as a key competence in higher education for future graduates to address societal challenges through creative thinking and problem-solving. However, despite multiple definitions of creativity and pedagogies across disciplines, challenges remain in fully integrating creativity into teaching. Based on interviews with 18 educators, we uncovered various creativity teaching dilemmas related to identity, practice, and the broader educational system. These dilemmas constitute a ‘dilemmatic space’, requiring educators to continuously adapt their identities and teaching while confronting systemic challenges. Further, we found that educators navigated these dilemmas by leveraging knowledge, expanding expertise, adjusting scaffolding, reforming curriculum, and providing emotional support. We conceptualised an ‘actor space’ associated with the educators’ utilisation of navigation strategies, emphasising the role of diverse actors in this process. The actor space complements dilemmatic space, highlighting diverse actors in supporting educators’ transformative learning as they tackle disorienting dilemmas in creativity teaching.