Young people’s views on sexting education and support needs: findings and recommendations from a UK-based study

Abstract

Young people's sexting is an area of increasing concern amongst parents, educationalists and policy makers, yet little research has been conducted with young people themselves to explore their perspectives on the support they need to navigate relationships in the new digital media landscape. To address this absence, an inter-disciplinary team of researchers undertook a participatory study with students, aged 13 to 15, in a UK secondary school. This paper outlines key study findings, including young people's views on sexting, their recommendations for improved education around sexting in schools, their preferred sources of support, and their perspectives on the way adults should respond to young people's sexting. Findings indicate that sexting education needs to be developed within the context of wider relationship issues, such as gender, power dynamics and trust between peers, and improved communication between students and teachers or other responsible adults. Findings may be used to consider ways of designing and communicating messages around sexting to young people within and beyond educational settings.

They don’t even think about what the girl might think about it’: students’ views on sexting, gender inequalities and power relations in school

“…Bindesbøl Holm Johansen et al 2019suggest that primary prevention of non-consensual image sharing needs to address how the violations are fuelled by gendered values and norms. The importance of discussing the nature of teenagers' sexting practises was also recognized by Jørgensen et al (2019). A key finding in their study is that the student participants repeatedly stated that they would like parents and teachers to talk to them about sexting practices using a more personal and relational communicative approach.…”

“…The phenomenon of sexting -sending or receiving sexual images, videos or written messages with sexual content though the Internet or smartphones -has become an increasingly common practice among teens today (Barrense-Dias, Berchtold, Suris, & Akre, 2017;Jørgensen, Weckesser, Turner, & Wade, 2019;Madigan, Ly, Rash, Van Ouytsel, & Temple, 2018;Waling & Pym, 2019). Sexting can be a means of flirting or exploring sexuality, but the activity can also have negative consequences such as humiliation and harassment, especially if images are shared with others without the consent of the person depicted (Barrense-Dias et al, 2017;Cooper, Quayle, Jonsson, & Svedin, 2016;Madigan et al, 2018).…”

“…Young people's sexting practices have become the subject of a growing body of international research (see Barrense-Dias et al, 2017;Cooper et al, 2016;Jørgensen et al, 2019;Lee & Crofts, 2015;Madigan et al, 2018). Despite this, there is still a lack of studies exploring how teens discuss and experience the phenomenon of sexting and what impact sexting may have on everyday life in school.…”

A Rights-Based Approach to Youth Sexting: Challenging Risk, Shame, and the Denial of Rights to Bodily and Sexual Expression Within Youth Digital Sexual Culture

“…Research by Albury et al (2013), for example, found that young people distinguish between abusive sexting contexts characterised by violations of privacy and consent, and more positive contexts in which self-produced images are used for purposes relating to experimentation, bonding, trust, intimacy, and fun. Young people can be critical of what they perceive to be negative and judgmental sex education discourses (Jørgensen et al 2018). However, the tendency for young people to be risk averse and individualistic about sexting may be a result of their exposure to these institutional and cultural risk and harm discourses (Crofts et al 2015;De Ridder 2017.…”

“…As youth cultural perspectives likely vary between young people, further research that explores how young people construct meaning and how meaning works to provide a facilitating context to harmful sexting practices, as well as the power dynamics and social inequalities within this context, would be of value. Further research could also explore young people's perspectives on sexting education (see Jørgensen et al 2018) and how a rightsbased approach could practically be created and promoted.…”