Drawing the revolution: comics as method and mirror in decolonising educational research

This hybrid research article explores how comics function as both research methodology and pedagogical intervention for decolonising educational practice in schools in England. Structured through six panels that perform sequential art principles within academic argumentation, the piece draws on conversations with educators, publishers, and comics creators, alongside workshop observations and recent scholarship, to demonstrate how visual storytelling disrupts traditional epistemologies and challenges what counts as legitimate knowledge production. Through a methodology I term panel-based analytical reading – interpreting conversation transcripts through comics’ grammatical structures – I argue that comics-based research offers unique affordances for addressing educational inequities, representing intersectional identities, and developing critical consciousness. The article examines structural barriers across publishing, policy, and institutional assessment that perpetuate epistemic exclusion, while documenting how alternative models – from indie publishing to digital platforms – circumvent traditional gatekeeping. Attending to comics’ particular accessibility for neurodiverse learners and their capacity for multimodal meaning-making, I propose concrete implementation strategies for embedding visual literacy across educational and research contexts. Writing from my position as a non-drawing advocate for visual methods, this piece contributes to growing institutional recognition of creative research methodologies while foregrounding the urgent decolonial work that remains: challenging curriculum violence, resisting epistemicide, and creating space for all ways of knowing to be valued.