Teaching sex education in the digital age: dealing with the influence of pornography

The programme is designed to challenge the harmful sexualised behaviours and cultures in schools. It aims to enable young people to see sexual development and safe, responsible and ethical sexual citizenship as a life-long journey. 

The approach brings young people more fully into the conversation, aligning with the best practice for relationships and sex education (RSE) courses in schools.  

The programme offers a model for how to engage with young people and is run in collaboration with schoolteachers, leaders, and parents; providing an approach which could be used by schools to address pornography specifically and sex and relationships more broadly. 

Dr Emily Setty, co-lead of the programme from the University of Surrey, said:  

“Addressing pornography in isolation will not solve the challenges faced by young people. Instead, we need to look at the entire ecosystem of sex, relationships and sexual development. Young people are learning from family, peers, school and the increasingly complex world of digital media. We need to talk with young people about their understandings of sex and relationships – body image, consent, social norms and stereotypes that surround sex and relationships.” 

Jonny Hunt, Lecturer in Applied Social Sciences with the University of Bedfordshire and co-lead of the programme, said: 

“There are widespread concerns about the impact pornography may have on the attitudes and behaviours of young people, predominately the fear that young people are learning more about sex and relationships from pornography, rather than from safe adults. This coupled with concerns around online misogyny promoted by influencers such as Andrew Tate.  

“Essentially, we are making room for young people to discuss the issues that matter to them. Our curriculum is designed to help young people to critically engage with questions around where their information, attitudes and values regarding sex and relationships comes from; to challenge gendered social scripts and focus on the development of critical life skills – or sexual citizenship.”   

The new approach was piloted in May 2023 and ran in partnership with the independent Kew House School in West London. The course took the form of ten hours of student sessions (with Year 9 and 10 students), four hours of teacher training; and dedicated parent sessions to include them in the conversation.

Another pilot course was conducted at Priestlands Secondary School in Southampton. 

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Note to Editors 

 The team are working with film communications producer Charlie Druce from Coasthouse Productions Ltd to produce a range of sensitively filmed interviews with students and teachers to support the research. 

• Both Emily Setty and Jonny Hunt are available for interview upon request 

• For more information, please contact the University of Surrey’s press office via mediarelations@surrey.ac.uk