Joining youth voice, creative pedagogy and research to activate ethical action

• Youth voice and lived experience
• Multidisciplinary collaboration
• Youth Catalysts for Action
• Collective creative pedagogy and curriculum co-design
• Meta-affect and multiple-perspective taking
• Eight Dispositions for Collective Creativity
• Reflection, responsible decision-making and ethical action
• Change for teachers, learners, ITE programmes and policy

Arts-based, co-participatory research makes young people’s challenges, values and priorities visible. These become Catalysts for Action for young people, creative practitioners, teacher educators, researchers, pre-service teachers and policy partners. Future teachers then imagine, make, feel, listen, encounter different perspectives and reflect on possible actions.

Meta-affect is the capacity to notice, interpret and reflect on feelings as they arise within individual and collective learning. It helps people recognise that the same situation may be experienced differently, supporting perspective-taking, critical reflection and ethical action.

• Agency, Autonomy and Openness
• Emotional Enquiry
• Possibility Thinking
• Negotiation and Ethical Dialogue
• Imaginative Freedom
• Teamwork and Belonging
• Self-Efficacy and Confidence
• Embodied Learning and Critical Reflection

Developed through longitudinal research with children and teachers, the dispositions connect youth voice, pedagogy and impact. They help educators and researchers recognise attitudes, values and ways of relating cultivated through collective creative learning without reducing complex development to a checklist.

• Young people — stronger influence over the education and teachers that shape their lives.
• Pre-service teachers — creative identity, understanding, belonging, confidence, agency and ethical awareness.
• Teacher educators — youth-informed, research-rich pedagogy and curriculum design.
• Learners — more inclusive, relational, creative and responsive opportunities to participate and act.
• ITE systems — sustained curriculum change, stronger partnerships and evidence for policy.

Universities embed, test and evaluate these approaches through action research. Emerging evidence informs ITE curriculum, sustained professional learning, practical resources and policy dialogue.