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We argue this method of inquiry better represents the participants' learning, lives and experiences in the formal neoliberal education system prioritising performativity, categorising and ranking students.

The paper explores using poetry as a research method to reveal the learning experiences of adult learners, who have often had disruptive experiences of the formal schooling system and return to study in community-based education spaces. Inspired by Laurel Richardson’s transgressive technique of presenting sociological data through poetry as method, we use poetic representations of these learners' lives alongside case study research methodology. The research was conducted in conjunction with Neighbourhood Houses in Victoria, Australia. Qualitative data were generated through conducting multiple case studies of learners across various adult community education (ACE) sites. In this research, some case studies were presented in the traditional method of writing biography, others were written in the form of found poetry, which we refer to as data as poetry and text. The paper uses found poetry through participant-voiced poems written from interview transcripts. We argue this method of inquiry better represents the participants' learning, lives and experiences in the formal neoliberal education system prioritising performativity, categorising and ranking students. Our findings highlight the benefits of using poetry to communicate data in case study research as it effectively represents the experiences of adult learners' lives in a creative and concise form, transgressing normative practices of writing education research. These poetic representations of data reveal learner experiences in an embodied and agentic way while providing readers with a deep and rich understanding of these crucial adult learning spaces.

Our findings highlight the benefits of using poetry to communicate data in case study research as it effectively represents the experiences of adult learners' lives in a creative and concise form, transgressing normative practices of writing education research.

This research paper is empirical research and has not been submitted elsewhere for publication.

The purpose of this study is to understand how executives in technology companies relate to targets for gender equality, especially pertaining to top management.

The study draws on 19 interviews of CEOs, senior line managers and HR directors in ten technology companies operating in Finland. The method is (reflexive) thematic analysis.

Previous studies on the role of executives in promoting gender equality provide somewhat mixed results: while their role is vital, senior leaders may not be inclined to support gender equality targets and measures. Drawing on critical feminist theorizing, this study identifies three ways in which the executives in technology companies related to gender equality targets: endorsing, negotiating and resisting. However, all these responses were constrained by the executives’ assumption that their companies are meritocratic. The study illustrates how executives’ narrow understanding of gender equality and reliance on the presumably well-working systems, combined with underlying doubts about the competence of women, hinder the advancement of women to top management.

While previous studies have evaluated targets to increase the number/percentage of women, both in certain “ideal case” companies and in terms of their effectiveness more broadly, this study discusses how technology company executives navigate these targets in relation to women's assumed “competence”.