Schools would do well to have a policy in place that addresses sexting, for the protection of staff and students, writes ACER Research Fellow Paul Weldon.

We all know that teens can be impulsive and act without thought for consequences, which is why sexual experimentation among teens is hardly new, or news, in itself. What is new, though, is teen sexual experimentation online. The capacity for instant communications, and the ease with which text, pictures and video can now be created, widely disseminated and retained, continues to evolve at an astonishing pace.

The term ‘sexting’ is derived from ‘texting’ and refers to the sending of sexually provocative material from modern communications devices. A year or two ago, I would have said ‘from mobile phones,’ but the advent of portable smart technology such as the iPhone and iPad, netbooks and BlackBerries has blurred any such distinction.

As the derivation suggests, material with a sexual theme is not limited to images, but can also be suggestive or soliciting text. While the term could in theory encompass all such material created and sent in this way, its current use is commonly linked to teenagers, and more specifically to minors.

The sending of nude or sexually provocative images between peers who are minors is currently proscribed by laws that were originally designed to protect children from abusive adults. Regardless of the context of their creation, with occasional exemptions such as some medical images, nude images of minors are illegal and likely to be considered child pornography.

In a first for Australia, a 14-year-old boy in WA was charged late last year under Commonwealth law with possession of child pornography, after a video of a 14-year-old girl engaged in sex act with two boys was found on his mobile phone. The same footage had also been forwarded to other students.

Lucy Battersby in the Melbourne Age in 2008 reported that 32 Victorian teenagers were charged with child pornography offences as a result of sexting in 2007.

If that figure surprises you, that may be because, if we have to think about child pornography, we’re unlikely to think of it in terms of a 15-year-old girl sending an image of herself to her 15-year-old boyfriend. The boy would be surprised, I think, to learn that he may be placed in the same category as adult sex offenders. And what happens if a 17-year-old girl, a minor, sends an image of herself to her 18-year-old, adult, boyfriend?

I think there is a case to be made that the law should take into account both the age of the perpetrators and the context in which the ‘offence’ was committed. While most parents and the wider community are likely to agree that there should be consequences, guidelines for the police and the courts as to how such matters should be handled would be very welcome.

The law may need to be modified with respect to school staff, and a policy drawn up with clear guidelines for dealing with underage sexual images, should staff encounter them. Suppose, for example, a boy approaches a male teacher, having been sent an image of a girl in his class by another boy. The teacher views the image then downloads it onto this computer as evidence before telling the boy to delete the image from his phone.

A more experienced, or wary, teacher might take the boy immediately to the principal, with the phone still in his possession, and call the police, who would then be responsible for interviewing the child and viewing the contents of the phone.

The first teacher may fall foul of the current laws and potentially face a charge of possessing child pornography himself. The second teacher, by involving the principal and calling the police, may be on safer ground, but his actions may currently have heavy consequences for the children involved. My point here is that schools need to have a policy in place with guidelines that complement those of the police and social services, and that school staff need to be aware of the appropriate action to take should a case of sexting come to light.

Modern technology remains a tool to be used, and for the most part communication technologies and the social uses to which they are put provide relatively safe environments in which teens can explore relationships. Teen romance will no doubt remain a source of much angst and confusion, but if an awareness of the ramifications of sexting gives young people pause to think about their actions before acting on impulse, at least one area of potential heartache – and an inadvertent criminal record – might be avoided.

A longer version of this article first appeared in Teacher, Australia's award-winning national monthly education magazine for educators across all state, Catholic and independent schools. Subscribe by visiting http://research.acer.edu.au/teacher

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