This symposium presents a series of perspectives on the research collated from the Creative Connections Project and how it has moved beyond the initial remit of the project to inform and influence the practice of it’s research participants.

Creative Connections was a three-year, EU-funded collaborative research project which began in 2012 and involves six European universities and twenty five schools in England, Spain, Finland, Ireland, the Czech Republic and Portugal (University of Roehampton; University of Barcelona, University of Lapland, Charles University, National College of Art and Design and Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo). The project has explored ways of increasing transnational understanding and what it means to be ‘European’ with over 800 young people and children. This innovative project focused on giving new emphasis to the ‘voice of the child’ through art, citizenship and digital media.

Richardson's paper considers how European identity remains a contested idea and how young citizens identify with Europe varies across member states and beyond. The paper presents a thematic analysis of an innovative automatically translated blog used by the young people to talk about their work and ideas. Responses and interactions provided some unique and novel insights to how young people perceive both themselves and others within a European context. The findings suggest that programmes of citizenship (civic) education need to continuously address perceptions of identity and civic belonging. The study has found that political and social issues across Europe are widely recognised by young people and have an effect on their perception of other states, individuals and societies.

Hernandez's presentation explores the consideration of the artistic educational practices developed during the Creative Connections project through the lens of ‘pedagogical event’ (Atkinson, 2012). This approach explores whether or not  learning experiences  have represented, for the youth participating in the project  “a disruption of established ways of knowing, through learning events” (Atkinson, 2012: 10). The presenters will argue that such a "movement", was potentially, what some  young people experienced during their participation in Creative Connections. This experience led them to reflect and visually reflect their views and concerns about Europe and the crisis that exists in countries such as Catalonia. The experience of generating an artistic project appears to have allowed them to experience learning as part of a  subjectivation process

In conclusion, a collaboration between UK and Irish partners will consider how student teachers utilise the contemporary artwork database as a reflexive, pedagogical tool to inform both their own practice and curriculum development within the primary and post-primary sector in their respective countries. The contemporary artwork database, created by the Finish team for the Creative Connections project (2014), will act as a catylyst to enable student teachers to unpack European citizenship based themes, through the lens of Art and Design Education. The paper will examine the effect of the action research intervention on the student art teachers’ ability to engage in critical thinking, socially engaged art practice and citizenship concepts within their curriculm planning in the initial teacher education programme.

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