Abstract

This chapter presents a case study of a successful student voice and student-staff co-creation project that centred creative self-expression and wellbeing. The authors, based at a research-intensive university in South East England, gathered together undergraduate and postgraduate students from across the institution in zine-making workshops. The aim was to provide a fun, creative and rewarding space where students from a variety of backgrounds felt safe to share their thoughts on, and experiences of, inclusion in higher education (HE). The output from the workshops was later compiled into a series of physical and digital ‘zines’ for free distribution. Zines are do-it-yourself, self-published booklets that have the potential to amplify traditionally marginalised voices. An arguably uncommon method of eliciting student views, zine-making represents a distinctive break with standardised systems that enable student voice in HE (e.g. generic end-of-module surveys), which often do not provide full recognition for all students. The author team, which is comprised of professional staff and an undergraduate student, provides context for this case study by describing the evidence-based student partnership frameworks that made the workshops and subsequent publication of the zines possible. In the course of the discussion, the authors draw on their reflections and on the words of students to argue that zine making is an inclusive way of facilitating the student voice. The authors also reflect on the potential of co-created or self-made zines to help address the awarding gap and raise awareness of the causes from the perspective of students.

Keywords

Zines, zine making, student partnership, student voice, the awarding gap

Introduction

Zines (small, hand-made booklets; zine is pronounced ‘zeen’ like the end of ‘magazine’) constitute a small but growing theme in pedagogy literature (Hays, 2020). As a pedagogical tool, zines have potential applications in a variety of teaching and learning contexts (Scheper, 2023). The authors of this chapter – professional staff members and a placement student based in a central teaching and learning unit at a university in South East England – utilised the medium of zines and zine-making workshops to capture and raise the profile of student voices at their institution. Student voices are a powerful tool for change (Cambell et al., 2007), but many exercises in gathering the student voice are metrics obsessed and outcomes driven. While post-secondary students in the UK are offered standardised means to voice their feedback on their course and study experiences, such as partaking in the annual National Student Survey, these measures can exclude traditionally marginalised groups of students (McLeod, 2011). We argue that zine making as a pedagogical practice can untether the student voice from this dominant framework, and enable the collection of student perspectives, stories, and experiences that would otherwise be at risk of being omitted by formal student voice activities to be integrated into institutional-level enhancement initiatives. The chapter seeks to expand on emerging scholarship on zines and teaching and learning by exploring the potential of the medium to help close awarding gaps.^[1] It will so do by positing that zine making is an inclusive teaching practice that offers a range of benefits, including building community and giving agency to both students and staff to address exclusionary teaching practices. This finding could be especially relevant for underrepresented demographic groups who are most at risk of being excluded from more traditional participation exercises (Berenstain, 2016).

We will first describe problems with established methods of surveying students, notably surveys and focus groups. Then, the discussion will move onto a description of zines as a creative practice utilised by traditionally marginalised and ‘outsider’ communities. We will then describe how the zine project evolved out of student partnership schemes and professional staff connections, including how we co-facilitated the zine-making workshops. Thereafter, we describe and analyse what we learnt from students through their engagement with the zine-making process. The chapter ends with recommendations for practitioners and institutions looking to implement zine creation workshops as an intervention to capture more ‘authentic’ student voices, and to ultimately aid in addressing inequities in student outcomes.

Traditional student voice exercises and their shortcomings

The persistent degree awarding gap in UK higher education is an example of the ways in which our systems and institutions work against people from marginalised communities. Students who are disabled, from racially minoritised ethnic groups or working-class backgrounds (among other underrecognised cohorts) are less likely to complete their undergraduate degree or receive a ‘good’ award if they do.^[2] These differences in achievement have been attributed to unequal systems, standards, processes, policies, and practices that disadvantage and alienate ‘non-traditional’ learners. They relate to factors ranging from the curriculum (in a broad sense), levels of the ‘cultural capital’ that is favoured by higher education, and a sense of belonging to one’s institution (Mountford-Zimdars et al., 2015). Students from marginalised backgrounds at our institution have – through paid consultation exercises – described the impact of “racially weird” classroom interactions, financial stress and feeling as though they “shouldn’t ask for support” (University of Reading, 2025, paras. 4–6).

Student representation in governance structures has grown significantly over the past two decades. Student voice has become a core component of quality assurance and features prominently in the National Student Survey, Teaching Excellence Framework, and student Access and Participation plans.^[3] However, student voice is an area where inequalities manifest, as typical strategies to include the student voice tend to underappreciate the participation barriers faced by marginalised groups (Glazzard, 2017). These barriers – such as a lack of belonging to the university environment and personal demands and responsibilities (Cureton & Gravestock, 2019) – have a filtering effect on diverse engagement in routine student feedback processes. For this reason, as students have become “agents of, and for, quality assurance” (Matthews & Dollinger, 2023, p. 560) research finds that diverse student voices are not widely represented (Bjørnerås et al., 2022).

Marginalised students who do participate in student voice initiatives may ultimately find themselves subject to ‘tokenistic’ activities rather than substantive student engagement. Student agency to affect change is easily compromised by factors such as overbearing managerial agendas (Fielding, 2004), surface level compliance with regulatory requirements (Shaffi, 2017), or restrictive approaches that do not offer students real power to impact decision making. These experiences are counterproductive and risk further alienating underrepresented students, since marginalising experiences have a bearing on motivation and academic outcomes (Gray et al., 2018). Analysis of the 2024 UK National Student Survey (Office for Students, 2025) finds differential rates of satisfaction with student voice for groups such as distance learners (–7.6%) and disabled students (–5.1%). These challenges amount to a need for student voice activity that is rooted in genuine collaboration and participation. Catering to the interests of marginalised groups in student voice is increasingly positioned as an effective alternative to traditional frameworks, with transformative potential (Islam & Valente, 2021).

Common approaches to representative student voice include reverse mentoring, student advisory panels, discursive spaces that only underrepresented students can participate in (e.g. the University of Reading Student Inclusion Consultant Scheme)^[4] and co-creation programmes that grant students explicit decision-making power.

Building a culture of student-staff partnership at the institution is a journey through which we have explored many student voice mechanisms, empowered communities to grow, and been guided by the ever-changing student population and their access to and engagement with higher education. We are intentional in our focus on the process of partnership rather than pursuing outcomes and metrics, understanding that to truly reap the rewards of student-staff partnerships in higher education is to build safe spaces where students feel free to be themselves, comfortable to share their stories, and empowered to influence change (Peters et al., 2019). The benefits afforded by ‘doing’ partnership include fostering a sense of belonging between marginalised groups. For example, belonging is fostered by intentionally building relationships and expanding access to professional and personal networks, demonstrating respect through active listening and collaboration, and feeling valued as a contributing member of the community.

Student-staff partnership initiatives have been the vehicle through which we platform the diversity of voices, experiences, and needs of our students beyond the classroom and at the level of the institution. Within our student voice and partnership schemes, students must be able to participate equally, so we create multiple routes into partnership spaces, advocating that the opportunities to contribute must be as diverse and dynamic as the students we aim to reach (Cook-Sather et al., 2014). To move forward from the traditional methods of focus groups and surveys, the mechanisms we adopt are increasingly wide-ranging and at the choice of the students (e.g. student stories, reflective blogs, design-based activities). We argue that while these initiatives lower the barrier to access, there is still an over-reliance on discursive spaces, and the risks of managerial influence and accessibility barriers often persist: for example, the barriers faced by students for whom English is a second language when they are asked to navigate focus group settings. In contrast, zine making is an underutilised approach which can helpfully address common risks, complementing these approaches.

Where zines ‘fit in’

A zine is a creative, do-it-yourself, and ‘outsider’ format that can address many of the problems associated with traditional approaches to student voice and co-creation exercises. Indeed, zines are effective in amplifying marginalised voices and providing an opportunity for community-building (Baker & Cantillon, 2022). Related in form to ephemeral literary productions like the radical pamphlet and the blog (Liming, 2010), zines represent a countercultural and critical practice that challenges mainstream and formal publication processes (Comstock, 2001). In the higher education context, these elements of zines set them apart from academic publishing and meticulously edited, ‘glossy’-style reports typical of the sector. They can be created out of physical materials (e.g. paper and markers), composed digitally (e.g. images manipulated in photo editing software), or created from a combination of these methods. As a handmade product, a zine might be a one-off artefact, the creator not intending it to be distributed, or it being unsuitable for reproduction due to the use of fragile or unique media. More commonly, however, handcrafted zines are reproducible, typically via direct photocopying or scanning into graphical editing software to create a digital file for further manipulation, printing, and/or hosting on the internet. While the format is analogue in essence, zines are nonetheless comparable to qualities today’s students associate with social media platforms: independent creation, self-publication, and collaborative community development across time and space (Scheper, 2023).

This variety of production (and reproduction) methods is representative of the immediate and accessible nature of zines. They offer their creators a platform and a means of self-expression, facilitated by a low barrier to entry. Zines are also sites of experimentation, where creators can use scissors and glue to create alternate meanings from existing texts. The do-it-yourself aesthetic of zines is effectively captured by Worley’s (2024) description of one of the first punk fanzines out of London, Sniffin’ Glue … + Other Rock ‘n’ Roll Habits produced by Mark Perry in 1976:

The text is typed but surrounded by a black felt-tipped scrawl that breaks any semblance of formalized design. The tone is fervid and urgent, aware but unapologetic of spelling or grammatical errors […] Having been photocopied surreptitiously at the office where Perry’s then-girlfriend Louise worked, the first Sniffin’ Glue was stapled at the top-left corner and ready to go: about fifty copies, eight pages long, distributed by hand. (Worley, 2024, p. 8)

This vivid depiction underscores zines’ long association within alternative, activist, and radical movements (Baker & Cantillon, 2022). Turning our attention to teaching and learning, the disruptive nature of zines aligns with the principles of critical pedagogical approaches to higher education, such as decolonising the curriculum.^[5] In learning environments guided by critical pedagogy, students are active agents in their learning who engage with problems that are personally meaningful, and gain agency to enact change beyond the classroom (Saunders & Wong, 2020). It is critical pedagogy that is arguably crucial to challenging social injustices and oppressive education structures which exclude some students and contribute to the degree awarding gap between different groups of students (Takhar, 2023).

We view zines as a tool for student advocacy, empowerment, and enabling change, particularly for marginalised communities of students. As will be described below, we used zines to provide underrepresented students a platform to share their voices, connect with others, and educate staff about their experiences and perspectives on teaching, learning, and university life in meaningful ways. As a process, zine making opened a space for creative expression and deep reflection on matters central to student experience, such as belonging at university. As a physical and/or digital product, the unique visual language of zines means they stand apart from the usual guidance on enhancing teaching and learning practice produced at our institution and within the HE sector generally.

Capturing the student voice through zines

Inspired by feminist zines collectively produced in university settings (e.g. Gray et al., 2021), the zine project was a collaborative venture between professional services colleagues who support teaching and students employed in advisory roles at the university. The project brought together colleagues and students from a diverse range of ethnic, cultural, and social backgrounds, with a shared interest in inclusivity and student voice. The students involved belonged to unique institution-wide partnership schemes at the authors’ university, the Student Panel and the Inclusion Consultants. The Student Panel empowers a team of 50 students, representing all subject fields and levels of study (from foundation to PhD), to directly influence the direction of policy, projects, and teaching and learning priorities that impact on the wider student experience at an institutional level. The make-up of the Student Panel aims to meet diversity targets set to mirror institutional Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data. This ensures there is a representative cross-section of voices and unique perspectives, including students of a range of ages, genders, nationalities, socio-economic backgrounds, neurodivergence, physical disabilities, and caring responsibilities. The Inclusion Consultants scheme employs a team of 15–20 self-identified underrepresented students to support equality, diversity, and inclusion practices in the classroom to help meet strategic priorities, including closing the awarding gap. Inclusion Consultants are current students with lived experiences of systemic barriers to success, typically made up of students with experiences of being a racial minority, commuting students, mature students, having a disability, and being first in their family to go to higher education.

The students involved in these two schemes are paid for their time and work, in an effort to sustain student voice and partnership practices at the institution. Remunerating students in these roles raises the value the institution places on student voices, establishes equity between students and staff, and enables sustainable opportunities for students who are at a disadvantage to volunteer beyond their studies (Mercer-Mapstone & Bovill, 2020). Overall, by recruiting students to this project through the existing institute-wide partnership schemes we were able to ensure the views presented in the zines were cross-disciplinary and representative of the diversity in the student body, and students’ time and effort were rewarded.

Determined to explore the potential of zines as an alternative mechanism to platform student voices within the teaching and learning space at our institution, the authors collaboratively designed zine-making workshops, to be run in person with groups of students from both partnership schemes. Out of these workshops, we aimed to produce a zine or a series of zines as complementary publications to the university’s existing inclusive teaching and learning resources. In mid-2023, we invited students to a series of three workshops, with the aim of providing the support, tools, time, and space for students to express their experiences and utilise their voices through creation. Within the workshop space, we hoped to create an inviting and collaborative environment where students would feel safe to share their genuine thoughts and emotions. Within our context, it was innovative and radical to engage in a student exercise for its own sake. We ultimately wanted to know what students thought about their degree programme and the university from perspectives of inclusivity and diversity, and for them to enjoy themselves while they told us.

Student availability significantly influenced the project timeline. We aimed to schedule the zine-making activities around students’ timetables and assessment deadlines, while also recognising the need to ensure workshops were completed before the end of the academic year and the expiration of the students’ employment contracts. To help accommodate these factors, we condensed the creative process into an intensive two-hour workshop. To enable this tight timeframe, we initiated several preparatory steps, including sending pre-reading on inclusive teaching and learning and a questionnaire to participants, to prompt their thinking on topics that would be relevant to the workshops (diversity, inclusion, and belonging in education). We also set about gathering the physical materials for the workshops. Materials included two dozen sets of scissors and glue sticks, and recycled materials from around the university, such as outdated prospectuses, study guides, and flyers and posters.

We made a conscious decision to run the workshops in person, with the hope that through face-to-face interaction, students could more readily build connections and feel more comfortable sharing their experiences and emotions, all of which might be more challenging to foster in a digital environment (Burke & Larmar, 2020), especially for a one-off engagement. Countering the more passive role that individuals can take in an online activity, we also wanted students to feel a sense of collective responsibility and achievement in what they had created in the room. Running the workshops in person held other advantages. The physicality of zine making offered participants an opportunity for tactile exploration of topics, adopting a range of cognitive and motor skills that those studying ‘less practical’ degrees may seldom use. During a high-stakes assessment period, where students can experience high levels of stress and anxiety (French et al., 2024), the workshops importantly offered an opportunity to take a break from revision, coursework and exams, and vitally, step away from their screens.

In the workshops, we organised students into groups of between six and eight and placed the art and craft supplies in readily accessible locations throughout the space (see Figure 9.1). Each participant received A4 sheets of paper as their ‘canvas’, along with a pair of scissors and a glue stick. To structure the zine-making process, we began with an identity mind-mapping activity, encouraging students to draw and write as they explored their sense of self in the creative process. This was followed by a very short introduction to zines, including circulating published examples. We then prompted students to respond to at least one of five overlapping themes in their creations: inclusion, diversity, belonging, decolonising the curriculum, or community. We selected these themes because the students had familiarity or an interest in these topics, which reduced the amount of preparatory work needed on their part.^[6] Next, students mapped out their designs, and we asked them to draw inspiration from their pre-work questionnaire, prior knowledge of their chosen theme, and their university experiences. They then shared their initial ideas with peers. These introductory and ideation phases lasted approximately one hour. During the second half of the workshop, students had 50 minutes to cut, paste, draw, and write. In the final 10 minutes, they participated in a ‘gallery walk’ to view each other’s creations. Before leaving, they wrote their names on the back of their pages, uploaded a photo of their work to a Padlet board, and completed an evaluation form. The authors also spontaneously participated in the zine making, feeling that in doing so the power dynamics in the room were equalised to a greater extent.

Following the workshop, students were consulted on the process of collating, editing, and publishing their creations in a collective zine. We set up a Padlet board for workshop participants to contribute their ideas on the editing and design of zines, including gathering title ideas. It was decided that the creations would be curated into three zines, each with a different theme: decolonising the curriculum, inclusion and diversity, and belonging and community. The students settled on Road to unity as the title that would unify the series. The team scanned the individual workshop outputs using a photocopier and uploaded them into the online graphical editing platform Canva to facilitate manipulation and, ultimately, arrangement into the final product. While we recruited students to write an introduction to each of the themed zines, the final reviewing and editing of the zines before they were printed and uploaded to the university website fell to us as team due to constraints including lack of availability of students. A generous grant from the university’s diversity and inclusion funding pot enabled the printing of 600 copies in total.

What we learnt

With the printed zines as a completely new format in advocating for student voices in our institutional context, we took a risk by asking the participants (students) and audience (academic staff and the wider university community) to think differently, approach themes from a new perspective, and readdress ingrained practices and perceptions within higher education (Brennan, 2021). With students as partners in the design, representation, and production of the zines, we provided an alternative outlet from the dominant feedback models where students are seen as consumers of education (Neary, 2014) and encouraged students to see themselves as fundamental contributors to the university’s development. The value of zines for eliciting the student voice is revealed by Becky Dillingham, Ecology and Wildlife Conservation student and zine-making workshop participant:

The student voice has to be at the heart of every decision made at the University and every aspect of university life has to truly embody diversity and inclusion. As such, the zine showcases the plethora of different ways that students feel that these themes can be interwoven more deeply into the way the University operates. The decision to create a student-led and student-made zine was arrived at to allow for authentic expression of the student voice, in a way that brought creativity to the fore and allowed every student involved to exercise their imagination. (University of Reading, 2024c, p. 2)

By intentionally fostering a relaxed group environment where students worked independently on their zine creation, we encouraged highly reflective and unique insights into students’ stories. Unlike a focus group, the slower pace and highly personal format of writing, drawing, and collaging, fosters conditions suited to those who may not have the confidence or willingness to voice their opinions, allowing them time to think critically and contribute their ideas without feeling pressured to ‘speak up’. Cain (2012) highlights the importance of intentionally ‘building in’ spaces for more introverted individuals to thrive, although we found this extended to international and neurodiverse students in the workshops. Removing the common classroom structures and ensuring all students can be seen and heard in a way that is comfortable to them builds equity and ensures that those students in future will be inclined to share, speak, and engage (Cook-Sather et al., 2025). The potential of zine making to create space for individual expression is highlighted by Psychology undergraduate student Reiowyn Ferrer in her introduction to the ‘belonging and community’ issue:

This zine encapsulates the essence of our individual journey. Within its pages, you’ll walk in the shoes of others, gaining a deeper understanding and appreciation for their experiences. This zine is a reflection of the road each of us took to get to where we are and what we have learnt. (University of Reading, 2024a, p. 2)

By repurposing and appropriating existing materials, including prospectus and university promotional collateral, students combined text and images to find new meaning, largely opting to use less words to represent a feeling or set of emotions. Culshaw (2019) describes this process of collaging as a tool for expression and reflection as it can “stimulate visual rather than linguistic thinking and offer the opportunity to express experiences as holistic, non-linear metaphors” (p. 268) and a “cathartic opportunity for participants’ feelings to be acknowledged and heard” (p. 271). Students presented deeply personal accounts of their experiences, providing nuanced insights into the challenges that affect their day-to-day campus interactions. Their pieces touched on isolation,^[7] accessibility of facilities,^[8] addressing gender imbalances in subject and disciplinary areas,^[9] and easing the cost of studying.^[10]

A notable piece, that addressed the topic of inclusive learning environments and has stimulated significant positive feedback from student and university staff readers of the zines, is Lab day blues: Hidden issues one might have as an autistic STEM student.

This piece, presented as a comic strip, illustrates the lived experience of a neurodivergent student navigating the challenges of a long and exhausting day in a scientific lab setting (University of Reading, 2024c, p.11). The narrative resonates powerfully, not only through its vivid portrayal of cognitive and sensory overload that autistic individuals may experience in highly stimulating environments, but also in its potential to provoke empathy, critical reflection, and dialogue among its readers. Lab day blues invites readers, and the academic community, to recognise how conventional teaching structures in labs can inadvertently marginalise certain students, and to imagine more accessible and compassionate learning spaces.

Students also created pieces centred around decolonising the curriculum, allowing readers to immerse themselves in the visual representations that conceptualised students’ experiences and feelings towards traditionally colonised curricula and their delivery. This is especially visualised in one student-created piece, titled WEIRD, an acronym common in social science that stands for western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic. The student encourages educators to “teach students to recognise” WEIRD in psychological research and education (University of Reading, 2024b, p. 19). One student combined printed and written text to describe decolonial practice as “a process of offering and honouring … an exchange based on sharing, not transaction’’ (p. 6). Another student contributor presented questions and prompts to consider the diversity of research and reading materials within each academic field: “if we limit our focus to only a few people and texts then we limit ourselves and our view of our world and our place in it’’ (p. 12).

Students reflected on the importance of building communities across the university; through this form of collective storytelling, the zines helped to inspire self-reflection, promote intercultural understanding, and contribute towards a sense of belonging. Through this partnership opportunity, students exercised confidence and felt self-assured in their capacity to share stories and be vulnerable with the other students and colleagues within the workshop space and then into the wider university community. Postgraduate student in Medieval Studies and student union officer Gabe James underscores how the zine-making workshops empowered students to share their thoughts and experiences:

We felt comfortable to be open and honest in sharing our experiences and where we didn’t shy away from ‘difficult’ conversations … Working collaboratively to create such a zine was not only an enjoyable experience for all involved, but allowed us to creatively share our thoughts, ideas, and feelings about the topic. This zine platforms the voices of students from across the university, students from different levels of study, year of study, topics, and backgrounds, but who all stand together. (University of Reading, 2024b, p. 3)

Reflections and recommendations

As cross-disciplinary practitioners operating within the ‘third space,’ the make-up of the team leading this explorative work is critical to foster innovation and creative thinking, bringing together diverse skills, expertise, and knowledge of the changing needs and complexity of our student population. Collaborative actions allow for wider communication and outreach, sharing of resources, insights, and outputs. As members of the university’s professional services, the team drew upon unique insights from working collaboratively across the institution, bringing “coherence to the previously fragmented multiple viewpoints, while honouring and appreciating the diversity and horizontally dispersed expertise” of both students and colleagues (Veles, 2022). Our central position in the university meant we were able to draw more students into the project and collaborate with a wider range of colleagues than may have otherwise been possible if the project had been confined to an academic department or school. The fact that students were from multiple programme and subject areas also meant the content of the zines covered a wide range of disciplines.

We supported students to construct their messages by repurposing recycled paper materials donated from across the university. Students, from all disciplines, crafted one or more creations and decided if they wanted them to feature in the published zines. This approach led to more authentic representation and expression of student voice, as students had complete control over how their perspectives were presented. By listening to the needs of our student groups, the zine-making workshops overcame the challenges of traditional feedback methods and opened a space for creative expression and deep reflection on matters central to the student experience, such as belonging at university. We argue that diverse perspectives lead to innovative and creative problem-solving, allowing the development of holistic approaches and solutions to the challenges faced by students.

The methodology at the core of the project was zine-making workshops. These acted as inspiring, democratic, and community-building spaces where participants reflected on their course and university experiences in ways that were meaningful to them. Zine-making workshops – which involved collaging and making visual and written material – opened a liminal space for creative expression and deep reflection on matters central to student experience. This creative approach is inclusive and accessible, e.g. crossing cultural boundaries, reducing language barriers for international students, and supporting neurodivergent students to engage through alternative modes of expression. While we opted to run our workshops entirely in the ‘analogue’ mode using physical materials, student feedback revealed a minority of students’ preference for using their laptop to create their zine. Further, it is possible to organise and run zine-making sessions online through video conferencing software such as Zoom (Gray et al., 2021).

One of the potential challenges we identified at the outset of the project was bringing the ‘outsider’ practice of zine making ‘inside’ the modern university structure. Amongst our concerns was that the zine format might not be taken seriously as student voice practice that could inform teaching and learning guidance, for it clashes with trends in this area, including ensuring digital accessibility, emphasis on brevity for the time-poor educator, and research-led professional development.^[11] This concern was compounded by the fact that we simply did not know if the students – most of whom were not studying arts-based degrees – would be able to produce ‘enough’ material that would appeal to the wider university. Fortunately, our concerns went unrealised, perhaps helped in part by a few steps we took at the beginning of the project. In recognition of collaborations enhancing impact (Reed, 2016), we sought out support from senior leadership, including securing funding for professional printing. Another key step was scaffolding the zine-making process, including asking students to engage with exemplars, which provided effective guidance. One student in the workshop evaluation surveys reported nervousness at the start of the session, but by the end said they found the process fun and relaxing. Further, feedback from staff in email and verbally since the publication of the zine has been overwhelmingly positive, and we are into our second print run of zines (1,200 copies have now been printed in total), proving there is an appetite for creative forms of student voice. The zine content includes techniques for inclusive practice (for example, using the ‘WEIRD’ acronym to reflect on the Eurocentricity of curricula) which have been widely shared. We hope to continue to develop dynamic approaches to learning from our students and explore creative practices that open avenues for students to continually influence our institution.

Related to the above, with the HE sector increasingly focused on evaluation, the highly creative and unconventional format of zines provides a challenge in the formal sense of measuring ‘impact’. We know from workshop evaluation data that students found making the zines meaningful, rewarding, and community building, but what about the wider impact of the outputs from those workshops? Reed (2016) defines a range of impact types: instrumental, conceptual, capacity-building, attitudinal, and enduring connectivity. Accordingly, a project like ours is likely having a conceptual impact – broadening understandings and raising awareness of challenges facing underrepresented students. Speaking broadly about zines in the awarding gap space, the format might go some way to meeting the growing calls for reconceptualising how the sector analyses and addresses these challenges, including grounding our understanding of why gaps exist in the real-life experiences of students (Hubbard, 2025).

While the degree to which our zine project is contributing to addressing disparities at our institution warrants further investigation, we take solace in aligned projects happening elsewhere in the UK HE sector. Zines are being positioned as a means to challenge dominant practices that contribute to awarding gaps in the disciplines of arts (Patel, 2023) and history (University College London, n.d.), and to help decolonise the curriculum in the arts (University of the Arts London, n.d.). These projects are focused on disciplines, while our zine-making work has a much broader remit: the entire university.^[12] This breadth arguably makes measuring impact all the trickier and perhaps calls into question the value of quantifiable data in measuring the impact of academic development activities. For example, less measurable engagements such as collegial conversations can “potentially have more valuable impact than an individual workshop or course” (van der Rijst et al., 2022, p. 1). Based on our anecdotal observations and conversations with colleagues, the zines have raised awareness of students’ lived experiences and started conversations that we hope lead to changed practices or behaviours vital to effective teaching and learning for all students. As explored above, zines lie outside the deeply entrenched student voice and feedback practices and policies within higher education. However, we believe zines can have a positive impact on external measures to the university, including the student voice questions within the National Student Survey (see NSS, 2025). In addition to our dedicated work to improve the institution’s approach to student voice practices, zines as an output have helped to reinforce our dedication to platforming diverse voices and lived experiences, without reducing students to numbers or statistics. Beyond providing an outlet for student expression, the zines have opened avenues for dialogue beyond the institution itself, including engaging the wider community and HE sector. For example, the team have engaged beyond our institutional boundaries and have so far disseminated the practice to audiences at four external conferences and symposia and at a zine festival. Expanding the conversation beyond our university exemplifies the potential of creative practices to extend their reach, connect with broader audiences, and challenge traditional academic discourse.

Conclusion

At university, where academic culture can be isolating for many students who feel they do not ‘fit the mould’, zines can create spaces where skills, experiences, and voices are equally platformed and valued. Zines overcome the limitations of traditional student voice exercises, which frequently fail to capture the diversity of views and experiences of the student body. Zines, as a creative and outsider medium, offer an alternative approach that promises a more personal, accessible, and unconventional form of student expression. Furthermore, the collaborative nature of our zine project – which saw staff and students work together – constituted a form of inclusive university community.

The zine project described in this chapter emerged as a response to the limitations of metrics- and-outcomes-based student voice practices, enabling the creation of a space for students from across the university to engage in voice work that emphasised their unique perspectives. Student creations were then compiled into a series of three zines that were made available in a limited print run and digitally. These zines have successfully injected more student voice into teaching and learning practice at our institution. We discovered that students conveyed ideas, experiences, and insights through the zine-making process that traditional surveys and focus groups would likely have failed to capture. The zines have enabled us to foster emerging partnerships with external organisations, offering a unique opportunity for cross-institutional knowledge exchange and collaboration. Overall, the students’ contributions to the zine project highlight the power of this method – and arguably of other creative pedagogical approaches that give students control over how their voice is presented – to capture and amplify underrepresented perspectives, with the ultimate aim of making classrooms and universities more inclusive and equitable.

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