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This paper sets out to analyse both the dominant constructions of childhood and the prevailing sexual scripts embedded in international reports on the sexualisation of childhood debate.

Four international reports from the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States are analysed using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis whereby the sexual subjecthoods made available to children and images of childhood itself can be interrogated.

This paper finds that a broad-brush approach to sexualisation renders consumption and embodiment as ‘sexualised’ and problematic. Gender remains unproblematised and sexuality as an issue is palpable by its absence. The reports show a lack of attention to the voices of children and a denial of their moral agency. Innocence is constructed as a fundamental yet unstable feature of childhood which requires protection from the insidious external forces of 21st century sexual cultures. Childhood thus functions as a motif for the state of society as a whole.

Identifying the dominant constructions of childhood, sexualisation, gender and sexuality, by analysing how these concepts are defined, understood and talked about within international responses to the issue of the sexualisation of childhood, light can be shed upon the sanctioned ways made available to ‘do’ sex, gender and sexuality and to ‘be’ a child, a boy, a girl, a ‘sexual’ or a ‘sexualised’ being. In addition, this enables evaluation of the ways in which images of the child are mobilised for policy and political agendas and how childhood functions as both a barometer for, and symbol of, the well-being of a society.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the narratives that construct the practice and regulation of ‘sexting’, the sending of sexualised images via text message, when engaged in by young people. The aim of this discussion is to better understand the extent to which those narratives recognise young people’s agency in relation to their sexuality and the role that new media plays in enabling youth to explore their sexual identity.

The methodology employed is that of discourse analysis. This approach is used to deconstruct the dominant narrative of sexting contained in the literature, a narrative that constructs it as a problem to be contained and controlled, either through the application of the criminal law or through education and guidance approaches. This paper then investigates an emerging counter narrative that gives greater emphasis to the autonomy rights of youth. A case study involving a Parliamentary Inquiry in one Australian State into sexting is also employed to further this analysis.

This paper concludes that the dominant narrative remains the strongest influence in the shaping of law and the practice of sexting, but that young people may be better served by the counter narrative that recognises their agency in ways that may empower and grant them more control over their bodies.

The paper thus provides an alternative approach to developing new law and policy with respect to the regulation of sexting by youth that should be of value to lawmakers and child and youth advocates.

The canonical narratives (Bruner, 2004) of contemporary research with children include participation, agency and voice. This inclusive language has saturated research literature throughout the development of the “new” social studies of childhood (James, Jenks, & Prout, 1998). Their presence was highlighted as illuminating greater understanding of the social realities of children’s lives but they mask and mute as much as they reveal. Heralded as the holy grail of emancipatory research with children, participatory methods have come to be recognized almost exclusively as the route for ethical practice and valid data. The absence of substantial, critical evaluation results in these concepts being little more than “cherished conceits” (Segal, 1999, p. 118). There has been a lack of thorough interrogation of what participation actually means and the data and social relations it produces. Participation implies collaboration and reciprocity but is counter-intuitively used to seek and promote the agentic child enshrined in neoliberalism. Children as social beings negotiate complex social relations (Richards, Clark, & Boggis, 2015) but this is often lost in research encounters which privilege the individual voice, informed by an under-interrogated definition of agency. Instead of following the neoliberal agenda we argue that recognizing the ways in which participatory methods, agency, and voice can and should promote reciprocal and relational social realities is vital to a better understanding of the worlds of children. We call not for their expulsion from research methods but for a re-evaluation of the assumptions that lie beneath and what is produced in their name.

To utilize LGBTQ affirmative theory to inform clinical work which affords queer youth with disabilities agency and authorship in their negotiations of sexuality.

The authors use a case study to explore the use of queer affirmative theory and peer consultation to guide and evaluate an ongoing clinical case of a young gay man with cerebral palsy as he negotiates his developing sexuality amid powerful messages from media, pornography, friends, and parental influence.

This paper finds that a queer affirmative therapy model which explores themes of intersectionality, and utilizes nuanced views of sexual identity, sexual behavior, and gender identity are useful to practitioners to encourage agency and authorship for queer disabled people in their negotiations of ability, sexuality, identity, and behavior.

This paper provides an alternative approach to nurturing queer identity by (1) creating refuge for emerging sexualities; (2) allowing for difficult dialogues where ability, sexuality, and gender can be pragmatically discussed, performed, and negotiated; (3) tolerating the discomfort of these difficult dialogues and pushing through to nurturing the unique queerness that evolves out of these conversations; and finally (4) encouraging transformation of all participants including client and practitioners. The practitioners discuss their own transformation through the co-created dialog with each other and with the client.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the development of a resource designed to support practitioners, who are not sexual health specialists, but who work with young people who may be at risk of teenage pregnancy or parenthood. Its aim was to enable practitioners to carry out an assessment using a screening tool, and to use educational interventions designed to reduce risk-taking behaviour or refer to a sexual health specialist. A research project to examine the perceptions of practitioners who had used the resource is reported.

The resource was based on a local needs assessment and developed by a multi-agency working group. The research utilised an online questionnaire and telephone interviews with practitioners.

Practitioners reported using the screening tool with young people with an average age of 13.1 years. They thought the educational interventions provided knowledge and helped with communication, self-awareness, reflection, confidence, attitudes and values clarification.

The project was based in one county in England. A sample of 17 per cent of the practitioners responded to the questionnaire, and they might be biased towards those who had engaged most, or most positively, with the resource. Three practitioners undertook interviews. The views and behaviours of young people are yet to be evaluated.

Within a climate of limited resources, the findings suggest that the project is providing an acceptable proportionate universalist, early sexual health intervention for young people.

The purpose of this paper is to examine a national sexual health and relationships education (SHARE) educational package for behaviour change techniques (BCTs) utilised in order to make recommendations for further improvements.

Using BCTs taxonomy (BCT V1), two coders independently examined the 22 session plans within SHARE for their utilisation of BCTs. All three authors then examined the results, and agreed on any discrepancies.

The SHARE package utilises only a small range of BCTs detailed in BCT V1. SHARE makes use of a range of techniques which may impact on the distal factors that influence sexual risk taking, such as self-esteem and building confidence to say “no” to sex.

SHARE – and perhaps other sexual health education programmes – may need to draw on more BCTs, particularly those supported by evidence, in order to effectively reduce risky sexual behaviours among young people. Programmes may also benefit from including broader elements around pleasure, self-examination and screening behaviour.

Sexual health packages rarely encounter such scrutiny, particularly being examined in relation to the BCTs. The new and rigorous way of rating the SHARE package has enabled a range of recommendations relating to BCTs to be made both for improving the package and other sexual health education programmes.