Emily Setty
Biographic Data
| ID | 4448790 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Emily Setty |
| GIVEN NAMES | Emily |
| FAMILY NAME | Setty |
| SIGNATURE | SETTY E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Surrey |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2085-7963 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 45 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Beyond harm narratives: Reimagining porn education through ‘safe uncertainty’
Contemporary UK policy and educational responses to pornography are largely organized around risk, harm, and prevention. Drawing on the UK Independent Pornography Review, this article examines how pornography is constructed as an object of governance and how this framing shapes pedagogy. While harm-prevention approaches prioritize certainty about meaning and effect, interdisciplinary research highlights young people’s interpretive diversity, ambi…
Online vs Offline; Near vs Far: How Parents Navigate Risk, News Media, and Safety in Children’s Post-Digital Lives
This paper explores how parents construct and manage risks in their children’s post-digital lives, including how they respond to news media, public discourse, and everyday concerns about online safety and well-being. Drawing on a longitudinal qualitative study conducted with 30 parents in England, we analyse how risk is framed through spatial, symbolic, and relational logics that reflect broader socio-cultural anxieties. While digital risks are t…
What does local news use have to do with raising children? Four dimensions of the roles of local news from a study on English parents’ news use
Communication and journalism studies have historically engaged with local news, often through investigations of local journalism and its audiences. Against this backdrop, in this paper, we pay attention to the role of local news – defined as news about one’s locality and neighbourhood, although not solely gathered from local journalism alone – in the specific situational context of raising children. Locating our work at the intersections of news …
Beyond ‘just say no’: Safe Uncertainty and rethinking responses to image-based sexual abuse among young people
Image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) is an evolving and increasingly pervasive form of harm in young people’s digital lives. In England, current responses remain fragmented, punitive and often ineffective, shaped by moralistic education, legal incoherence and risk-averse safeguarding practices. In this we review, we synthesise critical literature and stakeholder insights to examine how a trauma-informed, rights-based and ecologically grounded framewor…
‘You Have to Understand That They Don't Understand’: Girls' Perceptions of Adult Support for Navigating Influencer Culture
This article explores how girls aged 9–15 perceive and experience adult support in relation to influencer culture, drawing on qualitative research conducted in southeast England. Girls believed that adults often seek to mitigate digital risk through instrumentalised education or protective parenting, and articulated a desire for more emotionally attuned, developmentally responsive and dialogic support. They critiqued superficial or misattuned adu…
Environmental and climate news in the eyes of parents as audiences: Disconnection, uncertainty and anxiety in evaluating news about environmental change
This study examines how parents in England interpret and respond to environmental and climate news, and how these engagements shape emotional experiences and everyday parenting practices. Using a longitudinal qualitative design utilising semi-structured interviews and WhatsApp diaries, the paper explores how parents negotiate environmental news within broader emotional climates marked by anxiety, uncertainty, and constrained agency. While partici…
Parents’ news mediation in a risk society: Navigating trust, anxiety and digital literacy
Parental emotions in the context of culturally conflicted secondary school sex education in England
Teachers’ Cultural Conflicts in Secondary School Sex Education
This article investigates the cultural conflicts experienced by teachers when delivering sex education in English secondary schools. Drawing on qualitative, semi-structured interviews with 12 secondary school teachers, conducted as part of a broader empirical study on the emotional dynamics of cultural conflict in sex education, the research examines intrapersonal, interpersonal, social, and institutional tensions within this contested educationa…
Young people and sexual consent: Contextualising ‘miscommunication’ amid ‘grey areas’ of ambiguity and ambivalence
Educating young people about sexual consent aims to help them develop healthy relationships and prevent sexual harm. Yet, there remains no consensus on how to define consent nor the connection between consent and sexual harm. This article discusses findings from qualitative research conducted with young people in England that has explored issues of sexual consent. It engages with tensions around the so-called 'grey areas' and oft-critiqued 'misco…
The compromises and contradictions of ‘feminist’ sex and relationships education in the home: Empowerment vs. protection in digital risk societies
This paper discusses findings from interviews conducted in England with 15 self-identified feminist mothers about sex and relationships education in the home. Participants’ understandings and enactments of being sexuality educators for their children involved what they described as open and honest ‘sex positive’ communication with their children, based on their subjective views about gender and sexual rights, safety and wellbeing. Participants we…
Cultural conflicts in sexuality education and stakeholders’ responses to them: A systematic review
A Critical Review of the 2025 RSHE Guidance and Alternative Approach Framed in Safe Uncertainty
This policy review critically examines the English government's 2025 statutory guidance on Relationships Education, Relationship and Sex Education and Health Education (RSHE), analysing its educational assumptions, strengths and limitations through the lens of safe uncertainty. While the updated guidance somewhat reinstates key inclusive elements and promotes social and emotional literacy, it continues to position RSHE as a risk domain requiring …
Influence’ in the (post-)digital age: Girls’ experiences of online influencer culture
This paper examines how girls aged 9–15 engage with online influencer culture, focusing on interplays between digital and non-digital normative ecologies. Drawing on school-based workshops, we explore tensions between authenticity, normative ideals and self-presentation in girls’ interactions with influencers. Participants expressed agency in content consumption alongside pressures to conform, shaped by social interactions online and offline. We …
Beyond ‘yes’ and ‘no’: Reimagining consent education through boys’ reflections on power, emotion and relational uncertainty
Surveillance or Support? Policing Harmful Sexual Behaviour Among Young People in Schools
This paper examines the policing of harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) among young people in schools, drawing on qualitative research conducted with police and schools in southeast England. Utilising a Foucauldian surveillance perspective, we explore the challenges police experience in balancing punitive measures with relationship‐building efforts. We highlight contradictions between policing objectives and strategies, with police engagement often em…
Young Love “Locked Down”: Adolescent and Young Adult Perspectives on Sexting During the Covid-19 Pandemic in England
There were limited opportunities for in-person social, intimate, and sexual interactions in England during 2020–2021, due to restrictions imposed by the UK government in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. While previous studies examined the effects of lockdown on intimate relationships, there is less qualitative research regarding young people’s perspectives on and experiences of digitally mediated intimacy (sexting) during the period. This paper…
From ‘harmful sexual behaviour’ to ‘harmful sexual culture’: Addressing school-related sexual and gender-based violence among young people in England through ‘post-digital sexual citizenship’
Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in schools in England is a pressing concern, especially since the 'Everyone's Invited' movement laid bare the extent of the problem across the country. This article analyses the national policy context, asserting that SGBV is a systemic problem rooted in young people's school and online peer cultures that requires transformative solutions, involving active youth participation. We introduce and explore the u…
Young people’s ‘post-digital’ relationships during Covid-19 ‘lockdowns’ in England
The lockdown imposed in England in response to the COVID-19 pandemic involved an unprecedented ‘shift to digital’, including in relationships between non-cohabiting individuals. This article examines young people’s perspectives on and experiences of using networked communication technologies (NCTs) in romantic relationships during lockdown, based on 14 focus groups (n = 80) and interviews (n = 38) conducted with young people in England during 202…
Department for Education Statutory Guidance for Relationships and Sex Education in England: A Rights-Based Approach
In England, the Children and Social Work Act (HMSO, 2017) bestowed compulsory status on relationships and sex education (RSE), which means that young people’s right to receive RSE has been codified in law. This paper analyzes how this right is upheld and enacted within the Department for Education (DfE) (2019) statutory guidance on RSE for schools in England. The analysis suggests that the guidance features contradictory discourses in which young…
An Exploration of Healthy and Unhealthy Relationships Experienced by Emerging Adults During the Covid-19 Lockdowns in England
Romantic and intimate relationships are crucial for the socio-emotional development of young adults. However, the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting ‘lockdown’ restrictions imposed by the UK government limited opportunities for in-person relationships in England during 2020-21. This paper discusses young adults’ experiences of their relationships during lockdown, based on findings from 36 qualitative interviews conducted during 2021-22. The data…
Children and Society Policy Review—A review of government consultation processes when engaging with children and young people about the statutory guidance for Relationships and Sex Education in school…
This paper examines the participation of children and young people within government consultation processes. It considers the recent Department for Education consultation on its statutory guidance for schools for Relationships and Sex Education in England. The paper is based on a Freedom of Information request for the consultation responses categorised as from ‘young people’. We identify two issues in our interrogation of the data. First, there i…
Risks and opportunities of digitally mediated interactions: Young people’s meanings and experiences
Young people’s digitally-mediated interactions entail negotiating co-existing risks and opportunities. This paper discusses youth perspectives on these risks and opportunities, based on data from focus groups conducted with 12–21-year-olds in England. Analysis of examples of digitally-mediated interactions shared by participants suggests that pursuing opportunities involved or created risk for oneself and/or others, while motivations to pursue op…
Educating Teenage Boys About Consent: The Law and Affirmative Consent in Boys’ Socio-Sexual Cultures and Subjectivities
Educating boys about consent in schools in England is required as part of the now-statutory Relationships, Sex, and Health Education curriculum and, moreover, is considered important for addressing sexual violence, abuse, and harassment among young people. The present paper draws on qualitative data collected in three schools in southeast England to explore how boys are being taught about consent and how they relate to and interpret educational m…
Sex and consent in contemporary youth sexual culture: The ‘ideals’ and the ‘realities’
Sexual consent has increasingly become a central component of Relationships and Sex Education. This paper draws upon findings from qualitative research conducted with teenagers in England, which explored their perspectives on consent within their contemporary youth sexual cultures, including in digital (sexting) contexts. The findings suggest that young people’s definitions of consent often did not correspond to the socially- and contextually con…
Meanings of Bodily and Sexual Expression in Youth Sexting Culture: Young Women’s Negotiation of Gendered Risks and Harms
Confident’ and ‘hot’ or ‘desperate’ and ‘cowardly’? Meanings of young men’s sexting practices in youth sexting culture
Young men tend to be constructed as being at low risk of harm and able to extract value from sexting, compared to young women. Drawing upon findings from a qualitative study exploring practices and perceptions of sexting among 14–18 year-old participants in southeast England, I discuss the meanings and norms surrounding young men’s sexting practices. I outline how these meanings and norms underpinned perceptions regarding the value available to y…
Educating Teenage Boys About Consent: The Law and Affirmative Consent in Boys’ Socio-Sexual Cultures and Subjectivities
Educating boys about consent in schools in England is required as part of the now-statutory Relationships, Sex, and Health Education curriculum and, moreover, is considered important for addressing sexual violence, abuse, and harassment among young people. The present paper draws on qualitative data collected in three schools in southeast England to explore how boys are being taught about consent and how they relate to and interpret educational m…
From ‘harmful sexual behaviour’ to ‘harmful sexual culture’: Addressing school-related sexual and gender-based violence among young people in England through ‘post-digital sexual citizenship’
Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in schools in England is a pressing concern, especially since the 'Everyone's Invited' movement laid bare the extent of the problem across the country. This article analyses the national policy context, asserting that SGBV is a systemic problem rooted in young people's school and online peer cultures that requires transformative solutions, involving active youth participation. We introduce and explore the u…
Risks and opportunities of digitally mediated interactions: Young people’s meanings and experiences
Young people’s digitally-mediated interactions entail negotiating co-existing risks and opportunities. This paper discusses youth perspectives on these risks and opportunities, based on data from focus groups conducted with 12–21-year-olds in England. Analysis of examples of digitally-mediated interactions shared by participants suggests that pursuing opportunities involved or created risk for oneself and/or others, while motivations to pursue op…
Surveillance or Support? Policing Harmful Sexual Behaviour Among Young People in Schools
This paper examines the policing of harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) among young people in schools, drawing on qualitative research conducted with police and schools in southeast England. Utilising a Foucauldian surveillance perspective, we explore the challenges police experience in balancing punitive measures with relationship‐building efforts. We highlight contradictions between policing objectives and strategies, with police engagement often em…
Young people’s ‘post-digital’ relationships during Covid-19 ‘lockdowns’ in England
The lockdown imposed in England in response to the COVID-19 pandemic involved an unprecedented ‘shift to digital’, including in relationships between non-cohabiting individuals. This article examines young people’s perspectives on and experiences of using networked communication technologies (NCTs) in romantic relationships during lockdown, based on 14 focus groups (n = 80) and interviews (n = 38) conducted with young people in England during 202…
Frexting’: Exploring homosociality among girls who share intimate images
This paper presents an examination of ‘frexting’ (‘friend’ + ‘sexting’), which is defined as the exchange of personally-produced intimate images among friends. It draws upon accounts of frexting shared by teenage girls during a 2016 study investigating sexting conducted in Surrey, England. Frexting is theorised as a form of homosociality among girls and explores the extent to which and how it reflects, reproduces and subverts the dominant gendere…
Meanings of Bodily and Sexual Expression in Youth Sexting Culture: Young Women’s Negotiation of Gendered Risks and Harms
Confident’ and ‘hot’ or ‘desperate’ and ‘cowardly’? Meanings of young men’s sexting practices in youth sexting culture
Young men tend to be constructed as being at low risk of harm and able to extract value from sexting, compared to young women. Drawing upon findings from a qualitative study exploring practices and perceptions of sexting among 14–18 year-old participants in southeast England, I discuss the meanings and norms surrounding young men’s sexting practices. I outline how these meanings and norms underpinned perceptions regarding the value available to y…
Sex and consent in contemporary youth sexual culture: The ‘ideals’ and the ‘realities’
Sexual consent has increasingly become a central component of Relationships and Sex Education. This paper draws upon findings from qualitative research conducted with teenagers in England, which explored their perspectives on consent within their contemporary youth sexual cultures, including in digital (sexting) contexts. The findings suggest that young people’s definitions of consent often did not correspond to the socially- and contextually con…
Pornography as a cultural resource for constructing and expressing gendered sexual subjectivities among students in a co-educational boarding school
This paper draws upon research conducted in a co-educational independent boarding school in England to explore the role of pornography in students’ school-based sexual cultures. Drawing upon Mechling’s conceptualization of boarding schools as ‘total institutions’, I explore how pornography acted as both ‘play’ and ‘ritual’ through which participants asserted agency and control while producing a gendered social order surrounding sex and sexuality.…
Frexting’: Exploring homosociality among girls who share intimate images
This paper presents an examination of ‘frexting’ (‘friend’ + ‘sexting’), which is defined as the exchange of personally-produced intimate images among friends. It draws upon accounts of frexting shared by teenage girls during a 2016 study investigating sexting conducted in Surrey, England. Frexting is theorised as a form of homosociality among girls and explores the extent to which and how it reflects, reproduces and subverts the dominant gendere…
Educating Teenage Boys About Consent: The Law and Affirmative Consent in Boys’ Socio-Sexual Cultures and Subjectivities
Educating boys about consent in schools in England is required as part of the now-statutory Relationships, Sex, and Health Education curriculum and, moreover, is considered important for addressing sexual violence, abuse, and harassment among young people. The present paper draws on qualitative data collected in three schools in southeast England to explore how boys are being taught about consent and how they relate to and interpret educational m…
Department for Education Statutory Guidance for Relationships and Sex Education in England: A Rights-Based Approach
In England, the Children and Social Work Act (HMSO, 2017) bestowed compulsory status on relationships and sex education (RSE), which means that young people’s right to receive RSE has been codified in law. This paper analyzes how this right is upheld and enacted within the Department for Education (DfE) (2019) statutory guidance on RSE for schools in England. The analysis suggests that the guidance features contradictory discourses in which young…
An Exploration of Healthy and Unhealthy Relationships Experienced by Emerging Adults During the Covid-19 Lockdowns in England
Romantic and intimate relationships are crucial for the socio-emotional development of young adults. However, the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting ‘lockdown’ restrictions imposed by the UK government limited opportunities for in-person relationships in England during 2020-21. This paper discusses young adults’ experiences of their relationships during lockdown, based on findings from 36 qualitative interviews conducted during 2021-22. The data…
Children and Society Policy Review—A review of government consultation processes when engaging with children and young people about the statutory guidance for Relationships and Sex Education in school…
This paper examines the participation of children and young people within government consultation processes. It considers the recent Department for Education consultation on its statutory guidance for schools for Relationships and Sex Education in England. The paper is based on a Freedom of Information request for the consultation responses categorised as from ‘young people’. We identify two issues in our interrogation of the data. First, there i…
Risks and opportunities of digitally mediated interactions: Young people’s meanings and experiences
Young people’s digitally-mediated interactions entail negotiating co-existing risks and opportunities. This paper discusses youth perspectives on these risks and opportunities, based on data from focus groups conducted with 12–21-year-olds in England. Analysis of examples of digitally-mediated interactions shared by participants suggests that pursuing opportunities involved or created risk for oneself and/or others, while motivations to pursue op…
Young Love “Locked Down”: Adolescent and Young Adult Perspectives on Sexting During the Covid-19 Pandemic in England
There were limited opportunities for in-person social, intimate, and sexual interactions in England during 2020–2021, due to restrictions imposed by the UK government in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. While previous studies examined the effects of lockdown on intimate relationships, there is less qualitative research regarding young people’s perspectives on and experiences of digitally mediated intimacy (sexting) during the period. This paper…
From ‘harmful sexual behaviour’ to ‘harmful sexual culture’: Addressing school-related sexual and gender-based violence among young people in England through ‘post-digital sexual citizenship’
Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in schools in England is a pressing concern, especially since the 'Everyone's Invited' movement laid bare the extent of the problem across the country. This article analyses the national policy context, asserting that SGBV is a systemic problem rooted in young people's school and online peer cultures that requires transformative solutions, involving active youth participation. We introduce and explore the u…
Young people’s ‘post-digital’ relationships during Covid-19 ‘lockdowns’ in England
The lockdown imposed in England in response to the COVID-19 pandemic involved an unprecedented ‘shift to digital’, including in relationships between non-cohabiting individuals. This article examines young people’s perspectives on and experiences of using networked communication technologies (NCTs) in romantic relationships during lockdown, based on 14 focus groups (n = 80) and interviews (n = 38) conducted with young people in England during 202…
Young people and sexual consent: Contextualising ‘miscommunication’ amid ‘grey areas’ of ambiguity and ambivalence
Educating young people about sexual consent aims to help them develop healthy relationships and prevent sexual harm. Yet, there remains no consensus on how to define consent nor the connection between consent and sexual harm. This article discusses findings from qualitative research conducted with young people in England that has explored issues of sexual consent. It engages with tensions around the so-called 'grey areas' and oft-critiqued 'misco…
The compromises and contradictions of ‘feminist’ sex and relationships education in the home: Empowerment vs. protection in digital risk societies
This paper discusses findings from interviews conducted in England with 15 self-identified feminist mothers about sex and relationships education in the home. Participants’ understandings and enactments of being sexuality educators for their children involved what they described as open and honest ‘sex positive’ communication with their children, based on their subjective views about gender and sexual rights, safety and wellbeing. Participants we…
Cultural conflicts in sexuality education and stakeholders’ responses to them: A systematic review
A Critical Review of the 2025 RSHE Guidance and Alternative Approach Framed in Safe Uncertainty
This policy review critically examines the English government's 2025 statutory guidance on Relationships Education, Relationship and Sex Education and Health Education (RSHE), analysing its educational assumptions, strengths and limitations through the lens of safe uncertainty. While the updated guidance somewhat reinstates key inclusive elements and promotes social and emotional literacy, it continues to position RSHE as a risk domain requiring …
Influence’ in the (post-)digital age: Girls’ experiences of online influencer culture
This paper examines how girls aged 9–15 engage with online influencer culture, focusing on interplays between digital and non-digital normative ecologies. Drawing on school-based workshops, we explore tensions between authenticity, normative ideals and self-presentation in girls’ interactions with influencers. Participants expressed agency in content consumption alongside pressures to conform, shaped by social interactions online and offline. We …
Beyond ‘yes’ and ‘no’: Reimagining consent education through boys’ reflections on power, emotion and relational uncertainty
Surveillance or Support? Policing Harmful Sexual Behaviour Among Young People in Schools
This paper examines the policing of harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) among young people in schools, drawing on qualitative research conducted with police and schools in southeast England. Utilising a Foucauldian surveillance perspective, we explore the challenges police experience in balancing punitive measures with relationship‐building efforts. We highlight contradictions between policing objectives and strategies, with police engagement often em…
Beyond harm narratives: Reimagining porn education through ‘safe uncertainty’
Contemporary UK policy and educational responses to pornography are largely organized around risk, harm, and prevention. Drawing on the UK Independent Pornography Review, this article examines how pornography is constructed as an object of governance and how this framing shapes pedagogy. While harm-prevention approaches prioritize certainty about meaning and effect, interdisciplinary research highlights young people’s interpretive diversity, ambi…
Online vs Offline; Near vs Far: How Parents Navigate Risk, News Media, and Safety in Children’s Post-Digital Lives
This paper explores how parents construct and manage risks in their children’s post-digital lives, including how they respond to news media, public discourse, and everyday concerns about online safety and well-being. Drawing on a longitudinal qualitative study conducted with 30 parents in England, we analyse how risk is framed through spatial, symbolic, and relational logics that reflect broader socio-cultural anxieties. While digital risks are t…
What does local news use have to do with raising children? Four dimensions of the roles of local news from a study on English parents’ news use
Communication and journalism studies have historically engaged with local news, often through investigations of local journalism and its audiences. Against this backdrop, in this paper, we pay attention to the role of local news – defined as news about one’s locality and neighbourhood, although not solely gathered from local journalism alone – in the specific situational context of raising children. Locating our work at the intersections of news …
Beyond ‘just say no’: Safe Uncertainty and rethinking responses to image-based sexual abuse among young people
Image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) is an evolving and increasingly pervasive form of harm in young people’s digital lives. In England, current responses remain fragmented, punitive and often ineffective, shaped by moralistic education, legal incoherence and risk-averse safeguarding practices. In this we review, we synthesise critical literature and stakeholder insights to examine how a trauma-informed, rights-based and ecologically grounded framewor…
‘You Have to Understand That They Don't Understand’: Girls' Perceptions of Adult Support for Navigating Influencer Culture
This article explores how girls aged 9–15 perceive and experience adult support in relation to influencer culture, drawing on qualitative research conducted in southeast England. Girls believed that adults often seek to mitigate digital risk through instrumentalised education or protective parenting, and articulated a desire for more emotionally attuned, developmentally responsive and dialogic support. They critiqued superficial or misattuned adu…
Gender, Feminism, and Media (17 works) · Psychology (16 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Gender Studies (10 works) · Political science (9 works) · Developmental psychology (8 works) · Human sexuality (8 works) · Sex work and related issues (8 works) · Harm (7 works)