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.

The Meta-Affect and Collective Creativity Framework (Stephenson, 2026) connects emotion, creativity and collaborative learning. It proposes that creative pedagogies—using imagination, collaboration, storytelling, play, inquiry and artistic processes—create emotionally meaningful conditions in which learners can reflect on feelings, encounter different perspectives and build knowledge together.

• Creative pedagogies — emotionally rich, imaginative and collaborative experiences.
• Meta-affect — awareness and interpretation of one’s own emotions and how they influence thinking, relationships and action.
• Relational awareness — recognising others’ emotional experiences, perspectives and intentions.
• Collective meta-affect — reflecting together on emotional experience and its shared meaning.
• Collective creativity — generating ideas, meanings and responses through dialogue, imagination and inquiry.
• Ethical action — responding with empathy, responsibility, care and compassion.
• Social-emotional wellbeing and teacher agency — stronger safety, belonging, connection, professional confidence and capacity to act.

Meta-affect supports knowledge of self; relational awareness supports knowledge of others. Together they may enable collective meta-affect: shared reflection through which a group interprets uncertainty, responds to diverse perspectives and develops ideas collectively. The pathway is developmental rather than automatic, and depends on relational trust, emotional openness and careful facilitation.

The framework complements established social-emotional approaches. Rather than focusing primarily on individual competencies, emotional regulation or a separate intervention, it examines relational, embodied and collective processes within creative learning itself. Emotional reflection and wellbeing are treated not only as preparation for learning, but as part of how meaningful learning, collective creativity and ethical awareness develop together.

• 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.