The age at which many young people enter Higher Education (HE) is significant in exploring sexual identities, behaviours, and practices. High proportions of young adults in HE are reporting that they are left feeling unprepared for the reality of sex and relationships. Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) policy continues to be updated but often excludes the perspectives of the young people that it impacts the most.
This research aims to centre young adult voices to reimagine RSE. By adopting participatory methods to work with young adults who are currently studying in or about to begin studying in HE, I investigate how they feel about their experiences of RSE. Together,
they identify specific weaknesses, inequalities, and opportunities, and further engage with key educators and university welfare staff to propose actions to prompt the development of future educational practices and pedagogy.
Due to the ethically complex nature of the subject, a key focus of this research is to create brave spaces to support young people in authentically sharing experiences. The study aims to facilitate research through participatory design as a social innovation process. Creative practice was utilised to engage young people, and participatory design methods empowered participants to propose preferable futures informed by a critique of their collective experiences.
Findings identified that participatory design approaches can help facilitate connective spaces, mediate power dynamics, and ease stigma and discomfort, which in turn assists in critique and productive debate, challenging existing norms and actively confronting
oppression. This work advocates for participatory design to facilitate brave spaces for research, which is particularly valuable in research around relationships and sex, and may have value in other ethically complex fields.
It actively proposes action driven by young adults to improve RSE and outlines opportunities for educators to enact change in recommendations for more frequent, thorough, and normalised RSE, more inclusive RSE, and most significantly, the use of participatory approaches in RSE, which can engage and empower students as well as contributing to inclusion and normalisation. Furthermore, it identifies the potential benefit of creating brave spaces in RSE where young adults can feel empowered, address social norms and oppressions, and develop their critical thinking skills.