Re-Routing and Re-Imagining Gender and Education conference

GEA2025 is an opportunity to explore our roots and imagine new possible futures and directions as we recontextualise our work in a new age of extremes.  By focusing on the roots and routes of gender in education for GEA 2025, we invite participants to enter into debates about what it might mean to look back to our roots; reimagining how we might diversify routes into the future, including its natal forms; so as to Trans*form Routes; Activate Routes and Re-Route Policy. 

Diversifying routes to, from and through feminist practices in education necessarily requires approaches that reside in our sense of rootlessness as a way towards transformation— in the active sense that Spivak (2004) expresses as always being “on the run”. According to Friedman (1999, p.152), rootlessness also ‘acquires its meaning only in relation to its opposite, rootedness, the state of being tied to a single location’. Routes also imply movement, travel and physical, cultural and psychic displacements that are at one and the same time temporal and spatial, which ultimately mean an encounter with borders, otherness and alterity. 

Exploring multiple and alternative routes for generating feminist knowledge otherwise actively challenges the many normative ways ‘to conference’ (Osgood et al. 2022). In this conference we seek to create spaces to ask: what is the potential of non-voice, withdrawal, opacity and (non)performance? Might GEA2025 hold possibilities for strategies of opacity and resistance outside the realms of normative performances.  We turn to examples from long histories of feminist protest performance (from The Suffragettes; Doing Dadaism Differently; Pussy Riots; Idle No More and to the Anti-hijab Protests in Iran) to arrive at Bartky’s observation that: 

space is not a field in which her bodily intentionality can be freely realized but an enclosure in which she feels herself positioned and by which she is confined. The ‘loose woman’ violates these norms: her looseness is manifest not only in her morals, but in her manner of speech, and quite literally in the free and easy way she moves. (1997, p. 134) 

GEA2025 offers a space, place, and community in which to reimagine our routes/roots/rootedness – not as a space of normative performative and divisive standpoints but instead as a dramatic space of appearances in which to contemplate and encounter our connections, border crossings, pathways, wayfaring, belonging, connection to place, ‘home’, migration, nomadism, heritage, geopolitical identities - again.

Knowing routes

We should not and must not forget our roots. While understandings of gender are fluid, fractured, diverse, and often ‘troubled’ (see Butler 1990), it is worth recalling the long and entangled historical struggles we have endured to ensure that gender rests firmly on the educational and research agendas, and within the realm of robust social sciences and humanities course and degrees.  So many Gender Studies programs around the world are under threat of closure or have already been cut from university programs (e.g., CEU, Budapest).

This thematic root thus invites scholars to overturn the heightened amnesia in the field of education, one which is clearly in danger of forgetting or obliterating from its knowledge production practices a rich, vibrant and flourishing legacy of gender scholarship and its wider global reach. Feminists had to mobilise to fight for girls’ education to be seen as a distinct area of study. They developed concepts to show how patriarchy has confined and shaped both boys’ and girls’ education across continents and across time.  Researching gender, as Kim Thomas reminded us, ‘requires an examination of the cultural creation of male dominance as well as the creation of female subordination’ (1990, p. 2). The creation of public institutions such as the law, curriculum, pedagogy and school cultures set up different roles, possibilities and imaginaries for women as citizens and as scholars. A matrix of patriarchal forces (Walby, 1999) or ‘interlocking systems of oppression’ (Hill Collins, et al 2002; 82) still marginalises groups according to gender, class and race (Pateman and Mills, 2007). Social norms of masculinity or femininity still circulate as ‘truths’ or hegemonic norms (Butler, 1990; Connell, 1987). Studies undertaken between the 1980s and 2000s (e.g. Walkerdine, et al. 2002) found that girls policed themselves for fear that others would judge their talk, gestures, dress and forms of embodiment as both abject and ‘abnormal’ (Gordon, et al 2001). These histories continue to haunt the present. These issues are indeed prescient as we grapple with ‘gender troubles’ in a new time (Rasmussen 2023, Hines et al. 2024).  The pernicious roots of gender normativity have persisted into the present and are fuelled by social media and algorithms that feed on data riven with spectacularised gendered narratives and symbols which undermine more inclusive and imaginative societies. 

Diversifying Routes

Whilst the field of Gender and Education has made significant inroads in addressing marginalisation, exclusion and othering there remains much to do. The question ‘Ain’t I a Woman?‘ (bell hooks) and the declaration ‘And ain’t I a woman?’ (Sojourner Truth, see also Hortense Spillers, Sylvia Wynter and Saidiya Hartman, the afterlife of slavery) still resonate in contemporary debates about the place of transnational and post and anti-colonial feminisms and the extent to which some voices are heard and others are silenced.  Turning to Braidotti’s (2019) ‘missing peoples’ she urges: “whether we look at indigenous knowledge systems, at feminists, queers, otherwise enabled, non-humans or technologically-mediated existences, these are real-life subjects whose knowledge never made it into any of the official cartographies” (Braidotti, 2019, p. 51). On Braidotti’s list are “[w]omen’s, gay and lesbian, gender, feminist and queer studies; race, postcolonial and subaltern studies, alongside cultural studies, film, television and media studies…  and disability studies” (ibid. p. 38,).  Taking Bradiotti’s call seriously involves reanimating the value and urgency of intersectional approaches to feminism that create spaces for recognising the imperative to strive for genuine inclusivity where platforms exist for all voices - black, marginalised, working-class, queer, subaltern, young, old, sick, othered - to be heard. Must we only concern ourselves with ‘voices’?

Questions around the concept of intersectionality were first raised in the 1980s and continue to be relevant to our currently global landscape four decades on. In the intervening years, feminist scholars have persisted in diverse approaches to theorisation, innovation, creativity, and craftivism as ways to ignite activist approaches designed to challenge inequalities as they are sensed, encountered and endured in educational contexts. Dwelling upon diverse modes of feminist “performance and performativity […] as exceed[ing] the constraints of domination” (Saidiya Hartman, 1997, p. 57) actively undermines the privileging of reasoned speech and modern rationalities through an emphasis on embodied understandings of gender. This diversification of approaches to the study of gender and education, with a sustained emphasis on making a difference through lived, embodied experience, underlines the imperative for feminist collectivities to confront the complex yet connected challenges of our time and to pose new questions and identify new ‘problem spaces’– in un/anticipated ways.  As Halberstam (2011) stresses: “being taken seriously means missing out on the chance to be frivolous, promiscuous, and irrelevant”. But feminist educators, scholars, activists and artists pursue fugitive and wayward politics of immanence in their diverse pursuits of seeking to make a better world.  

Trans*forming Routes 

Gender’s increasingly contested and politicised status in education policy and wider public understandings (Mackay 2021) have profound implications for education, teachers, and children’s well-being and learning (Bragg et al. forthcoming). Many schools and educational institutions have striven to both apprehend and adapt to these changes, often with little support, funding or guidance, and within a socio-political context that is generating so much heat, polarisation and hate (Butler 2024; Bond-Stockton 2022). LGBTQ-inclusive and queer-theory informed educational content is being attacked (Rédai 2024) or deleted from our lives through political lobbying and the ultra-conservative right as is gender equity-oriented academic scholarship more generally (Amirali et al. 2024; Butler 2022). 

Trans*forming Routes seeks inter-disciplinary and trans*discplinary contributions that address how schools, children and young people, researchers and third-sector organisations are finding themselves increasingly on the front line of gender ‘culture wars’ and internationally growing ‘anti-gender’, ‘anti-trans’, and anti-‘woke’ movements more widely (Crenshaw 2024; Schoorman 2024; Holvikivi, Holzberg, and Ojeda Guemes 2024). These movements are dehumanising the work of gender researchers and placing decades of intersectional feminist praxis under threat.  Where are the ethical-political spaces to support gender-inclusive research and praxis? How might the Gender and Education community reconsolidate and reimagine new routes for navigating such toxic terrains? What can new formations of intersectional, intra-sectional feminist, queer and trans* scholarship bring to the collaborative realms of understanding the roots and routes of how gender/s are becoming in the world?

Activating Routes

Feminist research is often marbled with activist tendencies that urge a more direct connection with, and responsibility for, how academic research comes to matter. The field of gender and education is replete with examples of projects and people embedding ‘intra-activist’ (Renold and Ringrose 2017) philosophies and praxes in ways that in-form and trans-form lives, communities and local, national and international education policy and practice. Activating Routes welcomes papers and symposia that explicitly engage with the activist potential of, often para-academic, gender and education research. How might we support each other to exploit the extractive corporate ‘research impact’ agenda, with its narrow and ethically dubious measurement machines and matrixes? How can we learn from the ever-inventive micro and macro political ways in which historical and contemporary feminist research praxis has always sparked and continues to spark recognition, imagination and change? If, as Braidotti (2019, p. 4) argues, “‘despair is not a project; affirmation is’, what are the challenges of enacting an affirmative activist praxis in an increasingly volatile terrain? How might we weave feminist safety nets and cultivate feminist support clouds for ‘staying with’ the ‘gender trouble’ (Haraway 2016; Butler 1990)?

Re-routing Policy

Relationships between academia and industry, policymakers and communities are key to UK universities and funding bodies, but the values, ethics and priorities of these relationships are often unclear, particularly in light of the instrumentalisation and quantification of research into metrics to prove community and societal impact (Phipps, 2015). In the context of disinformation and culture wars, what role does research play in policy formation?   What would a feminist approach to policymaking look like in this context? Which feminisms are we talking about (Phipps, 2018) and how might they be coproduced or queered (Renold and Ivinson 2024)? 

We as an organising committee stand behind intersectional feminist approaches, which have long prioritised questions about the politics and practices of care, community and reciprocity, the critical analysis of and intervention in power relations and an imperative to create more just worlds (hooks 2015, Braidotti 2009). 

• Workshop 1, Early Career Researchers)
• Joanne Dillabough and Sarah Truman, room BS 1.24 

This workshop explores the vital interplay between methodological innovation and impactful feminist research in gender and education, including an exploration of our own “epistemic attachments” (Bacevic, 2019) to wider questions of impact and method. 

Facilitated by experienced researchers, theorists and practitioners, it provides early-career scholars and doctoral students an opportunity to reimagine how their research can drive meaningful change across schools, communities, societal contexts and the field. 

The session highlights creative approaches to achieving research impact that must necessarily extend beyond the canon and conventional academic outputs. Examples include decolonizing gender and education methods, addressing the role of empire, race, coloniality and intersectionality in our feminist methodologies, decentering methodological canons through a range of critical perspectives, and leveraging, for example, videography, digital podcasting, and arts-based digital tools, ensuring participants are staying ahead of the audio and visual curves of our historical moment and its impact. 

Discussions will explore how visual tools uncover hidden narratives, amplify marginalised voices, and foster spaces for dialogue and reflection. 

Facilitators will showcase impactful methods such as short videos, visual storytelling, podcasting and participatory exhibitions, illustrating how feminist methodologies challenge inequalities and inspire collective action through transformative school and community policies. 

Importantly, this session equips participants to address contemporary challenges while resisting narrow, bureaucratic notions of impact often driven by research councils, Research Excellence Framework metrics or institutional human resources agendas. Instead, it emphasises feminist approaches that redefine what impactful scholarship can achieve.

• Workshop 2, Early Career Researchers
• Emily Gray, Mindy Blaise and Helen Rowlands, Editorial Manager of the Gender and Education journal, room BS 1.24

Publishing in leading journals is a key milestone for early-career researchers and doctoral students. Yet, the process can feel overwhelming, with challenges ranging from meeting editorial expectations to articulating a clear feminist voice. 

This workshop, led by experienced editors and contributors, will demystify the publishing process and offer practical strategies to help participants develop their research for successful publication. 

The session will open with an overview of publication strategies, crafting engaging and provocative research, aligning submissions with editorial aims, navigating the peer-review process, and positioning work within feminist educational scholarship. 

Participants will also learn how to respond constructively to reviewer feedback, particularly when facing critical or conflicting comments. 

Facilitators will explore how feminist research challenges academic norms through originality, and innovative questions, and intersectional and anti- and de-colonial approaches, ensuring critical engagement with power, knowledge and inequality. 

Participants will also explore how co-authoring, collaborative theorizing, and participatory methodologies can enrich their research. 

Through case studies and real-world examples, participants will also practice crafting research questions and article outlines, and gain feedback on their own publication ideas. 

Whether you are preparing your first submission, navigating the revision process, or seeking to enhance the impact of your work, this workshop will equip you with the tools and confidence to write and publish whilst connecting you with peers, editors and feminist scholars committed to supporting the next generation of researchers in the field.

• Teacher/Educator Professional Learning, Workshop 3
• EJ Renold and Sara Bragg, room BS 1.24

Participants interested in exploring how and why youth voice matters in developing relationships, sex and sexuality education (RSE) and how creative listening can support this process are welcome to a two-hour workshop. 

At the workshop, participants will: 

• Find out about what and how young people are learning about relationships, sex and sexuality from recent research.
• Explore creative ways to listen to the youth voice in the design and delivery of high-quality RSE.
• Understand how a rights-based approach to RSE has the potential to create inclusive learning environments that attune to young people’s diverse views and experiences.
• Try out some simple, creative and participatory activities to adapt in school settings to engage with children, young people, staff, parents and governors.
• Receive links to resources to support your learning journey. 

Find out more and register for Engaging Young People in Relationships and Sex Education.