Researchers have persistently highlighted the need for relationships and sexuality education (RSE) to reorient itself to the priorities of young people (Quinlivan 2018; Allen & Rasmussen 2017). Central to this, is an increased recognition that young people are invested in RSE futures that they co-create and often inherit (Coll et al, 2020; Renold 2018; Renold et al, 2021). This paper is derived from a larger three-year participatory action oriented project, undertaken in four secondary schools across Australia, which engaged over 100 students as co-researchers (aged 15–19) in understanding, critiquing and transforming sexuality and relationships education (Ollis et al 2022). This paper will focus on an activist orientated research engagement with one urban secondary school’s Feminist collective (Fem Co) who acted as critical friends and pedagogical consultants on the larger project. This paper explores what RSE and educational contexts more broadly might learn from student-led creative activism and the ways in which students are already working towards shared concerns for the transformation of futures. Drawing on queer and affect theory, this paper considers what a critical mode of hope might offer for a rethinking of transformative orientated pedagogies and co-constructed forms of RSE curricula. Part of the function of this paper is to look beyond what is broken and to diversify the stories we hear about young people in RSE orientated research in education.

Allen, L. and Rasmussen, M. L. (eds.) (2017). The Palgrave Handbook of Sexuality Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Bragg, S., Renold, E., Ringrose, J., and Jackson, C. (2018). ‘More than boy, girl, male, female’: exploring young people’s views on gender diversity within and beyond school contexts. Sex education, 18 (4), 420-434. 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. Renold, EJ., Ashton, M. & McGeeney, E. (2021) What if?: becoming response-able with the making and mattering of a new relationships and sexuality education curriculum, Professional Development in Education, 47:2-3, 538-555.