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.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexting
• young people
• perspectives
• relationships
• UK

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the participating school and the young people who took part in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary

Supplemental data for this article is available online at here.

Notes

1. Terms employed for ethnicity follow categories of the UK Office for National Statistics census data that are used widely within the UK context, including within schools.

2. Websites and pages created to post naked and sexual images of girls in a local area for the purpose of ‘naming and shaming’ those deemed ‘promiscuous.’

3. In England, Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) Education is a non-statutory school subject in which students are taught life, relationship and work skills.

4. This describes a situation where the whole school student body or a large group of students are gathered together to listen to material delivered from a podium.

5. Childline is a UK free and confidential service, which is available for children and young people under 19 years to discuss any issues or difficulties they may experience.

6. In the UK, following the Protection of Children Act (1978) as amended by Sexual Offences Act (2003), it is illegal to make or distribute indecent (nude) images of anyone under 18, even if that image is made by or with the consent of the person who is aged under 18.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Faculty of Health, Education and Life Sciences at Birmingham City University, UK.