This paper explores the challenge of matching practice with the ideals of participatory research and the reflexivity and (re)negotiation of the researcher's role. We highlight the centrality of emotions to our study, both in terms of the substantive topic and our observations and experiences as researchers. Building on this experience we argue that recognising and foregrounding the emotional dimensions of research is an essential step towards producing a rigorous and convincing ethnography.

This article examines the workings of informal exclusion units located within British secondary schools. Although articulated in terms of inclusion and support such initiatives effectively work to remove students regarded as troublesome from mainstream classrooms. Drawing on ethnographic research in three inner-city schools we show how a therapeutic ethos governs activities within the units. A focus on developing personal skills is maintained in an effort to compensate for the perceived shortcomings of parents and wider communities. As we demonstrate, this reasoning drives a culturally intolerant approach concealed within a broader commitment to multicultural values. While notions of diversity are celebrated within the schools, issues of race and racism are routinely avoided, ensuring that institutionally ingrained patterns of discrimination remain unchanged.

This paper gives a personalised account of our attempts to develop creative participatory methods with challenging pupils within the context of ethnographic research carried out in UK inner city secondary schools. During the course of our fieldwork, we drew on a variety of innovative and arts-based activities, designed to help us build relationships with the pupils and gain an understanding of their experience from their perspectives. We discuss the ways in which the emergent methodology facilitated this process but also some of the complexities and issues that arise in relation to conducting creative participatory research.

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Creativity has become the new watchword in UK academic and policy circles. Within this context, policy discussions about the arts and their impact emphasise economic benefits over educational value, drawing clear distinctions between quantifiable or ‘hard’ measures of impact and those described as ‘soft’, less tangible and lacking a strong evidence base. Departing from the binary logics often underpinning notions of arts impacts, this article is novel in exploring the entwined relationship between impacts seen as ‘hard’ and ‘soft’. We draw on research examining the links between arts education and young people's future trajectories and use the concept of ‘active citizenship’ to show how informal, softer skills fostered through creative learning are an important part of citizenship‐making for some young people. Participants’ accounts show how improvements in soft skills can give young people opportunities for agency, which shape progression pathways leading to measurable change. This finding is directly relevant in the context of evaluations of arts impacts in the UK and abroad, and should encourage further examination of the impact of creative learning on transfer of skills as well as policy developments in this area.