Education departments too focused on prevention and cyber safety rather than respectful relationships and gender equality, say youth development experts

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The response of education departments around the country to teenagers taking explicit images of themselves and sharing them has been “woefully inadequate”, outdated and overly paternalistic, youth development experts say.

It follows confirmation by the Australian federal police last week that it is investigating a website encouraging pupils to upload sexually explicit images of their female, underage peers and involving students from 70 Australian schools.

Guardian Australia contacted every state and territory education department and asked how they educated students to respond if they received an explicit image of one of their peers.

Police investigate claims schoolgirls across Australia targeted by site hosting explicit images Read more

In the ACT, Western Australia and Queensland, parents were described as having a pivotal role by monitoring their children’s behaviour on the internet outside of school hours. In New South Wales, students are taught the importance of not sharing “inappropriate images and of reporting such activity to relevant staff”, a department spokesman said.

Prevention by not taking the images in the first place was also an overarching theme among the responses from the departments, as were lessons around cyber safety in general.

Many departments, including the Northern Territory, South Australia and the ACT said schools used the resources provided by the federal government’s e-safety commissioner.

“One lesson within these resources focuses on the topic of ‘sexting’ and clearly teaches students the legalities of receiving and sending explicit images of themselves or other people,” a Northern Territory department spokeswoman said.

“In summary, the lesson explains that the production, storing and sharing of images of individuals under the age of 18 can amount to a criminal offence under applicable commonwealth, state or territory laws.”

The ACT education directorate was the only department to specifically mention that students were taught about respectful relationships, and safe and healthy emotional and sexual relationships.

Professor Catharine Lumby from Macquarie University, whose research spans young people, media consumption and relationships, said educational programs about digital content needed to start from a premise that young people will take explicit images of themselves, rather than telling young people not to snap the images altogether.

“Prevention is a pipe dream,” Lumby said. “The way adults and the people making policy approach these issues are often moralistic, authoritarian and paternalistic, and teenagers just laugh at the people who call themselves cyber safety experts.

“Teenagers also find it amusing that adults and experts call this ‘sexting’, because teenagers themselves never use that term. Parents and educators are just fundamentally out of touch, and we will get nowhere until we let young people start by telling us about their own perspectives on these practises in a safe and open environment.”

Lumby, who has worked with high school students and asked them for their views on sharing images as part of research, said young people should never be put down or shamed for taking the images.

“Taking these images is a very common practice, it is part of how young people express themselves sexually and form relationships now, and we must give them space to explore that safely and manage any risks,” Lumby said.

Parent says school blamed female students for explicit images posted online by others Read more

“We’re living in a fantasy land if we think stopping boys and girls from taking the images is the right approach.”



Good education would involve talking with students about the double standards around gender and sexuality, she said, and addressing the attitude that meant some young men were prepared to share images of women without consent and make derogatory comments about them.

“Girls are under enormous pressure to be attractive, but if they’re seen to be flaunting it, then they’re at risk of being called a slut,” she said. “Girls are in a no-win position. The good thing is, a lot of young men recognise that and don’t think it’s fair.

“Conservative attitudes about gender are the real problem here, and a lot of experts and educators have conservative ideological and religious agendas.”

Dr Amy Shields Dobson, a University of Queensland postdoctoral fellow and author of the book Postfeminist Digital Cultures: Femininity, Social Media, and Self-Representation, said part of the issue was resources provided to schools were “woefully inadequate”.

“So many of the resources put an emphasis on cyber safety and prevention without a great emphasis on ethics, respect and responsibility,” Dobson said. “To be fair to teachers, they aren’t given great materials to work with.”

Young people were increasingly challenging the logic and fairness of the narratives presented to them, she said, noting the unfairness of girls being labelled “sluts” for sexual behaviour that boys are rewarded for.

“What seems more difficult for youth, as for adults, is to imagine the possibility that girls are legitimately entitled to digitally mediate sexuality or express sexual desire, for example, through taking, sending or posting images of their bodies via phones privately, or on social network sites more publicly,” she said.

“Boys’ right to public bodily display and sexual ‘attention seeking’ on and offline is largely assumed. Tools are needed for going beyond the discourses available in common sext education resources to develop critiques of sexism as part of creating gender equity in schools.”

Dobson said education needed to explore and challenge norms around masculinity, and Dobson said that “sext education” needed to promote schools as places of friendship and support, while challenging norms around masculinity.

A more nuanced public conversation about social media as spaces of legitimate courtship and sexual exchange for youth was also required, she added.

If you are aged between five and 25 and need to speak to a counsellor, call Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800.

The national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service, 1800 RESPECT, can be reached on 1800 737 732.