Creative Research Methods for Gender, Sexualities and Social Change

This is the first of three Education Studies Association of Ireland (ESAI) Gender and Sexuality Research in Education SIG events we will host in 2025 on methodological possibilities, aimed at gender and sexualities researchers across all stages of career.

The workshop will take the following shape:

Part A 11-11.50pm Prof EJ Renold (Cardiff University)

Making youth voice matter in gender and sexuality research with creative methodologiesThis session will introduce participants with the ways creative methodologies can be drawn upon to attune, animate and amplify gender and sexuality education research with children and young people to diverse audiences. The session will open with a presentation, based upon a recent paper (Renold et al. 2024) of a collaborative pARTicipatory research project with the NSPCC which explored how young people are learning about relationships, sex and sexuality (Renold et al. 2023). We will then invite participants to try out some of the creative methods (see www.agendaonline.co.uk), with the wider aim of sparking discussion on the challenges and affordances of becoming creative with youth voice on matters of gender and sexuality, from research design to dissemination, and beyond.

EJ's profile can be found here

Part B 12-1pm Dr Ester Mc Geeney (Independent Scholar)Re-animating data: creative possibilities for working with research archives to reimagine gender, sexuality and social changeThis workshop will explore creative possibilities for working with archived social science materials, as a starting point for generating new insights on gender, sexuality and social change. Drawing on findings from ESRC funded study 'Reanimating Data: Experiments with People, Places and Archives', participants will be invited to consider the what data ‘reanimation’ might look like and how the social sciences can be drawn into creative conversation that goes beyond current agendas of the 're-use' and 'secondary analysis' of data. Drawing on a recently published paper (Thomson and McGeeney 2024), the session will start by introducing the Reanimating data project and providing an overview of the four creative and participatory methods developed during this study. Participants will then be invited to try out one ore more of these methods and consider the ethical and methodological possibilities of these approaches for their own work.Participants are invited to bring along their own research materials to work with if they want to, but this is not a requirement as research data will be provided.

Ester's profile can be found here

Host or Publisher Aoife Neary