This paper builds upon critical and creative engagements with the politics and praxis of ‘youth voice’ (Mayes 2023) in sexuality education research (Quinlivan 2018; Ollis et al. 2022). It shares the methodological journey of an exploratory research project where creative methods were co-produced to invite a diversity of young people (aged 11-18) to be the critics and architects of what and how they are learning about relationships, sex and sexuality. Over 120 young people, across 6 schools and 2 youth groups in England, Wales and Scotland, participated in the making of ‘darta’ (arts-based data, Renold 2018). We follow this ‘darta’, from the field, and into a suite of creative research outputs: a film, poetry and darta ‘calling-cards’. Drawing on the concept of ‘youth voice assemblages’ to capture the material agency of ‘voice’, we explore how this empirical arts-praxis enabled us to attune to, animate and amplify the complex ways in which young people surface and share what matters to them on a wide range of topics (e.g. from periods and porn to gender and sexual diversity). In a sexuality education context which too often simplifies and silences young people’s feelings, views and experiences, we argue that a creative ontology of ‘youth voice’ is an ethical and political imperative for a more relevant, responsive and ethical sexuality and relationships education to come.

Mayes, E. (2023). Politics of Voice in Education: Reforming Schools After Deleuze and Guattari. Edinburgh University Press. Ollis, D., Coll, L., Harrison, L. and Johnson, B., 2022. Pedagogies of possibility for negotiating sexuality education with young people. Emerald Group Publishing. Quinlivan, K. (2018). Contemporary Issus in Sexuality Education for Young People. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Renold, E. (2018) ‘Feel what I feel’: Making da(r)ta with teen girls for creative activisms on how sexual violence matters. Journal of Gender Studies, 27 (1), 37-55.