School-Based Education to Address Pornography’s Influence on Young People: A Proposed Practice Framework

Abstract

There is growing community and policy interest in educational efforts among children and young people to address pornography. Education on pornography increasingly is seen as a necessary strategy in the context of young people’s widespread exposure to pornography and the potential shifts in young people’s sexual and gendered lives and relations which this entails. What, then, does promising practice in education to address pornography’s influence look like? This article offers a framework for school-based pornography education. It begins with the rationale for conducting pornography education in schools in particular. The article then offers a detailed account of a proposed practice framework for school-based pornography education, emphasizing such principles as a whole-school approach, a robust conceptual approach, grounding in sexuality education, and participatory teaching and learning. It concludes by assessing an existing school curriculum resource, In The Picture, against this framework.

Keywords:

• Pornography
• pornography education
• sexuality
• childhood
• adolescence

Disclosure statement

I, Maree Crabbe, disclose that I developed and have financial interest in the school curriculum resource, In The Picture, which is used as a case example in this paper.