This symposium explores the potential for bringing creative methodologies and research communication techniques to research in the field of gender, sexuality and education. The three papers in the symposium draw from three research projects in three national contexts, Finland and Sámiland, Wales and Australia.  

The papers in this symposium demonstrate how and why creative research methodologies and methods have become important strategies in feminist educational research in order to create generative spaces for mapping how children in Wales experience, negotiate, and express how gender in/equality matters in their everyday lives; exploring Sámi pine mythologies and personal experiences of Arctic girlhood and selfhood through thinking with Kelohonka – the ancient pine of Lapland; and will provide examples of how feminist creative methodologies and methods enable situated, contextualised, and experiential outputs to be generated from a research on everyday sexisms in Australian universities.

Feminist, queer and Indigenous scholars have increasingly turned to creative approaches because of their concern with the shortcomings of conventional research methods for attending the complexities and nuances of power relations and intersectionalities, conveying findings to a broader public, and working towards systemic change (Coleman and Jungnickel, 2024; O’Sullivan and Reardon-Smith, 2025).

It is argued that creative methods are necessary for not just investigating phenomena, but that they are both engaged and engaging with participants, knowledge, and the broader public (Lury and Wakefield, 2012). The papers presented here strive to activate transformation at the micro and macro levels. 

The authors of the papers acknowledge the difficulties inherent to systemic changes to the ways that gender, sexuality and education are lived, understood and perceived, especially during the precarious times we are living in, and specifically regarding the rights of trans and gender diverse people, as well as Indigenous peoples. Presently, gender and sexuality diverse people have varying levels of equality across the UK and European Union. In the UK, trans rights to equal participation in public life and spaces have been rolled back by changes to the definition of woman and man under the Equality Act, which since 2025 are legally defined as biological sex at birth. In Australia, the past 6 years have seen increased racism – especially towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and anti-trans and gender diversity reflecting ideologies that exist in tandem with global political movements aimed at the destruction of equity and diversity as principles of inclusive governance (Butler, 2024). In Finland, there is an intense public debate about Sámi rights to belonging, both within the Sámi community itself and in relation to Finland as a settler‑colonial state. This discussion reflects broader struggles over Indigenous sovereignty, cultural continuity, and the recognition of Sámi epistemologies within national political structures. It also intersects with wider tensions around gender, sexuality, and the rights of trans and gender diverse people, highlighting how multiple forms of marginalisation and resistance become entangled in the current moment of social and political precarity. These dynamics inevitably extend into education, shaping the everyday experiences of diverse children and young people, influencing how they encounter knowledge, identity, and belonging, and affecting the futures they are able to imagine and inhabit.

Considering changing global politics, the symposium engages with how creative methodologies enable gender and sexuality research to reveal subtle resistances that occur in the everyday of education. Additionally, the symposium will demonstrate how creative methods, as research communication tools, open up different opportunities for dialogue, reflection, and pathways to action than traditional research outputs.

The symposium aims to generate discussion, it will be participatory and encourages delegates to engage with data and artefacts, including data-driven creative outputs.

Butler, J. (2024). Who’s Afraid of Gender? London: Penguin Random House. Coleman, R. and Jungnickel, K. (2024). Introduction to Creating Feminist Futures: Research Methodologies for New Times. Australian Feminist Studies, 38 (115-116): 1-13. Lury, C. and Wakeford, N. (2012). Introduction: A perpetual inventory. In C. Lury and N. Wakeford (Eds). Inventive Methods The happening of the social. London: Routledge, 1-25. O’Sullivan, S. and Reardon-Smith, H. (2025). The colonial project of gender: trans joy, queerness in practice, coloniality in turmoil. Continuum, 39(1), 13–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2025.2456011