Intersectional approaches to educational research through a gendered lens

This special issue advances intersectional research in education in three key ways. First, it explicitly repositions intersectionality as a theoretical and epistemological intervention, grounded in Black feminist scholarship, rather than as a neutral methodological tool or policy metaphor. Second, it demonstrates how intersectionality can be enacted empirically across diverse European educational contexts, addressing persistent challenges related to data, methodology, and political resistance while retaining conceptual rigour. Third, the contributions move beyond descriptive accounts of inequality to foreground how intersecting structures of gender, race, class, sexuality, disability, and institutional power shape educational experiences, knowledge production, and professional trajectories. Collectively, the papers show what becomes possible when intersectionality is treated not as an add on, but as a critical lens that reshapes research questions, analytic frameworks, and interpretations. In doing so, the special issue offers concrete conceptual, methodological, and practical insights that extend existing intersectional scholarship in education and clarify its continued relevance for contemporary research and practice.