This thesis examines what constitutes a 'creative' 'partnership' and whether theoretical frameworks and models can be articulated which produce 'creative partnerships'. The thesis derives from an ethnographic study of Fichte Nursery School and artists and educators working within Creative Partnerships programmes in Hull, based upon qualitative research and narrative enquiry.

The thesis presents an historical perspective of creativity and cultural education in English schools and suggests that, as a result of performativity discourses within education, contemporary discourses of creativity are determined by social relationships based in Gesellschaft as opposed to Gemeinschaft, and are heavily prescribed by political agendas which strive for economic growth and thus become supersaturated with meaning and desire.

A Deleuzian philosophy of creativity is proposed as a suitable philosophical basis for this research, as the concept of heterogenesis allows for the possibility of the development of an alternative discourse of creativity in which social relationships are more closely aligned to conditions of gemeinschaft.

The thesis identifies discourses upon which pedagogies for artists and educators might be established and argues that pedagogies are ambiguous and contingent architextures which define learning spaces. The Nursery School is seen as an example of a complex, heterogenetic Deleuzian city and it is presented as the site for the empirical research. The thesis examines the manifestation of creativity in the school, the manifestation of creativity by artists in schools and the role of 'outsiders' in participating in creative relationships.

Six structural features are presented which form the architexture of the pedagogies of artists and educators, conceived as six interconnected Zones: a Zone of Scrap, of Disguise, of Infectivity, of Intimacy, of Surprise and a Zone of Grace. A new methodological tool is proposed, to observe classroom practice: that of the Classroom Gaze. Implications for policy, practice and practitioners are discussed