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At a time when concerns about sexual violence, online harms and the efficacy of Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) frameworks are at the forefront of public discourse, this book offers a timely and necessary intervention. Presenting the concept of ‘safe uncertainty’ as a transformative framework for understanding adolescent intimacies and relationships, authors Setty and Hunt critique current deficit models in relationships and sex education in place of a more nuanced engagement with digital intimacies, online sexual learning and sex media, healthy relationships, gender and consent.
Traditional approaches to RSE, while well-intentioned, can reduce complex social and emotional dynamics to simplistic binaries, leaving young people ill-equipped to navigate the inherent ambivalences and ambiguities of intimacy and relationality. Drawing on original research and case studies from the authors’ practice, this text demonstrates how safe uncertainty acknowledges ambiguity and ambivalence as integral parts of relationships and intimacy and involves creating environments where young people can explore their perspectives and experiences without fear of judgment or rigid moral or legal solutions. Aligned with a broader need for relational, developmental and contextual approaches to understanding adolescent intimacies, Setty and Hunt explore how this framework encourages educators, policymakers and researchers to move beyond knowledge-transfer models and instead focus on equipping young people with the skills to navigate uncertainty in ways that promote emotional resilience and ethical decision-making as sexual citizens.
Connecting the concept of safe uncertainty with critical debates on consent, gender and digital culture, this timely contribution bridges gaps between research, practice and policy on both a national and an international scale.
This could not be a more timely book. The recent media focus on issues such as misogyny and the harmful sexual behaviours that this can result in has placed educators in a position where they need to consider how to tackle these. As Setty and Hunt contend, often the media focus on cases can create knee-jerk approaches that react to the latest moral panic. Through their research, they have identified that existing approaches to informing and awareness raising do little to address harmful sexual behaviours and that a different approach is needed. What this book argues is a different approach to engaging young people in these conversations, one based on relational education principles to hold space for conversations on what are often complex and challenging topics. This book goes beyond providing a theoretical argument for a different approach but offers an accessible and practical model for reimagining relationships and sex education. Their approach weaves academic literature with practical experiences from their work in schools. This is an academically rigorous yet engagingly written book that speaks to both academics and practitioners alike and is a must-read for anyone engaging with young people.
— Jon Rainford, Senior Lecturer, The Open University
Reimagining Relationships and Sex Education makes a genuinely original contribution to educational research by introducing the concept of Safe Uncertainty as a new pedagogical framework for Relationships and Sex Education. Rather than simply refining existing approaches, it fundamentally reimagines what RSE can be, moving the field beyond compliance, risk management and prescriptive messaging towards a model that embraces complexity, dialogue and critical reflection. What particularly distinguishes this work is the way it places children and young people at the centre of the educational process. It treats them not as passive recipients of adult instruction, but as thoughtful participants capable of navigating uncertainty, developing ethical judgement and shaping their own understanding of relationships and intimacy. It creates a more inclusive, rights-based and genuinely child-centred vision of RSE that reflects the realities of young people's lived experiences while remaining firmly grounded in safeguarding and educational practice. This book combines conceptual originality with clear practical relevance, offering a framework that has significant potential to influence research, policy and classroom practice. It represents exactly the kind of innovative scholarship that advances educational thinking.
— Professor Andy Phippen, Professor of Digital Rights, Bournemouth University, UK
This excellent book provides powerful, insightful and accessible opportunities to develop the professional practice of RSE educators everywhere.
Few teachers have any meaningful initial training or in-service CPD and are frequently stuck with information-giving approaches that offer simplistic solutions to complex interpersonal relationships.
Young people need to develop skills and personal attributes that enable them to keep themselves safe, happy and well. In an uncertain world, they also need to articulate ideas, formulate arguments and be able to disagree agreeably.
By developing these skills and approaches, teachers can enhance their pedagogy and translate their professional expertise into other curriculum areas.
— John Rees, Freelance PSHE advisor
This book is a must-read for anyone supporting young people with sexual citizenship and digital intimacies in a rapidly changing world. Having delivered relationships and sexuality education to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, from kindergartens to the United Nations, I have long felt the limits of an information-transfer approach. Setty and Hunt, both researchers and practitioners who have run workshops with students and teachers across the UK, know this gap firsthand: knowing isn't the same as doing, and relationships and sex education cannot just recite rights, wrongs, and statistics.
This book reimagines that approach. Each chapter pairs background knowledge with questions that push educators and students alike to think critically and ethically, rather than simply absorb information. The result is what Setty and Hunt call safe uncertainty: classrooms reshaped into places where young people are invited to sit with what they don't yet know, rather than be handed fixed answers. This matters now more than ever. RSE is increasingly mandated in countries like Australia and the UK, even as it is being wound back elsewhere, as conservatism and fear reshape the political landscape around it.
This book offers a solid framework for that moment, one that centres student voice and lets young people learn from each other, moving past risk avoidance alone towards genuinely healthy and pleasurable lives, built on empathy. It's a shift I've long believed the field needs, and this book gives educators the tools to make it.
— Kerrin Bradfield, Sexuality & Media Specialist – Respect Collective
Emily Setty is Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of Surrey, UK.
Jonny Hunt is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Social Sciences, Childhood and Youth Studies, at the University of Bedfordshire, UK.
Introduction: Creating space for uncertainty
Chapter 1. Rethinking relationships and sex education and adolescent Intimacies
Chapter 2. Safe uncertainty: A pedagogical framework for adolescent intimacies and relationships and sex education
Chapter 3. Creating safe(r) spaces to explore uncertainty
Chapter 4. Why safe certainty is inadequate for consent: Navigating ambiguity and ambivalence in adolescent intimacies
Chapter 5. Gender power dynamics in adolescent relationships
Chapter 6. Digital intimacies
Chapter 7. Online sexual learning and sex media
Chapter 8. Rethinking ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ relationships through safe uncertainty
Conclusion: Reimagining RSE for the future