Weaving resistance: Feminist pedagogies and teacher activism in the face of anti-feminist backlash in Catalonia

This research analyses the strategies, practices and frameworks for action deployed by teachers, feminist and LGTBIQ+ activists in Catalonia to counteract the anti-feminist and anti-gender backlash in education. Our point of departure is the analytical framework of the case study by Gavaldà-Elias (2023), which provided a qualitative documentation of the systematic attacks orchestrated against Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE), inclusion, and the rights of children, adolescents, and teachers during Jair Bolsonaro's government in Brazil (2019-2022). That study brought to light the repertoires of resistance and collective strategies driven by the educational community and social movements in defence of public, democratic, and inclusive education. The recent Brazilian experience, alongside other cases of anti-feminist backlash governance in both the Global South and North, serves as a key reference for understanding the advance of ultra-conservative political projects that threaten human rights, the right to education, and specifically, policies on gender and sexual equality. The Brazilian case is adopted here as an analytical framework to illuminate local forms of conservative reaction and the modes of resistance emerging in response within a distinct context. The study focuses on analysing two spaces of pedagogical and political articulation in Catalonia—the Plataforma d’Educació Sexual and Eixams—to identify how they construct strategies for action, support networks, and discursive frames in defence of CSE and the gender perspective. Through this approach, and drawing on semi-structured interviews and participant observation, the research seeks to contribute to understanding contemporary forms of educational resistance and the consolidation of a feminist, intersectional pedagogical field committed to social justice