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A personal view on the Netflix hit, Adolescence

A Warning for Parents, a Teaching Moment, or Just a Drama?

by City St George’s UoL doctoral researcher Sylwia Wypyska-Kieran

I finally got around to watching the show. I braced myself for it. I work in this field, and when I sit down to watch TV, I want an escape. And more importantly, I have a son the same age as the main character. I was scared—I know how dramas can pull the right emotional strings to shake you to your core. And this show does exactly that.

It grips the audience, tapping into their deepest emotions to climb the charts. It spreads fear about youth violence, fueling the anxieties of parents who are already overwhelmed by the mysteries of the online world. At the school gates, friends tell me how upsetting it was. Online, acquaintances share tips on how to ‘better control’ our children, while colleagues publish their expert opinions. Following the discourse surrounding the show is fascinating. But let’s start from the beginning.

Katie was murdered. In a typical narrative about crime, the show’s focus is on the perpetrator – a 13-year-old boy. This compelling drama has done an amazing job of avoiding the othering of the boy who killed, a common and widely criticised practice in the media. Jamie looks young and innocent. His child-looking face shatters the stereotype of a perpetrator, which is so important for society’s understanding of the reality of everyday violence. We feel for him. We see a child whose life has crumbled. We feel for his parents, we feel their pain, self-blame and disbelief. Together with the detectives, we seek the answers. Why?

I was expecting the answer to be the manosphere. The trailer and discourse surrounding the show heavily focused on that. The online world of incels and Andrew Tates. I was surprised and rather confused to see that the manosphere was not a direct effect on Jamie’s behaviour. Katie was bullying Jamie, calling him an incel and telling him that no one will ever go out with him.

How did a drama about a boy who murdered a girl manage to make her seem responsible for his crime? Whilst I pondered whether I misunderstood the implication, I saw a comment online ‘What the boy did was definitely wrong but didn’t it start from the bullying by the girl!!!’.

The detective’s son pulls his Dad aside and tells him about the secret language of teenagers. I work with some amazing people whose work is all about young people’s participation. Teenagers don’t live on The Planet of the Adolescents, to which we have no access. Yes, adolescence is a distinctive period in people’s lives and we do have to understand the psychosocial challenges young people face. But let’s not align adolescence with violence and let’s not separate ourselves from them. It is harmful to them, to us, and to society as a whole.

‘Adolescence made free for schools as Keir Starmer meets creators’, the BBC reports, alongside calls to introduce anti-misogyny lessons. But we can’t teach our way out of misogyny. It seems like a reactive decision made without consultation with experts or young people. The context, complexities and consequences of this decision could be immense.

The boys I have spoken to, as part of my research exploring responses to harmful sexual behaviours, have told me that they feel shut down in conversations about relationships and sex. It is consistent with other studies around the topic. They already feel they do not have a space where they can explore and learn about relationships or their identities as men. Will showing this series to them open up a conversation or prove them right? My bet is on the latter. We risk pushing them further into a corner—driving them toward the very spaces where they do feel heard.

References

Youngs, I. (2025) ‘Adolescence hard to watch as a dad, Starmer tells creators ‘, BBC News, 31 March. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx28neprdppo (Accessed: 02 April 2025).

Gooch, B., Cooke, M. (2025) ‘Schools to run anti-misogyny classes for boys in bid to tackle toxic masculinity’, The Independent, 25 March. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/school-misogyny-classes-boys-toxic-masculinity-adolescence-b2718706.html (Accessed: 04 April 2025)

King-Hill, S (2025) ‘Adolescence in schools: TV show’s portrayal of one boyhood may do more harm than good when used as a teaching tool’, The Conversation, 02 April. Available at: https://theconversation.com/adolescence-in-schools-tv-shows-portrayal-of-one-boyhood-may-do-more-harm-than-good-when-used-as-a-teaching-tool-253158 (Accessed: 02 April 2025).

For further information, please contact Sylwia at sylwia.wypyska-kieran@citystgeorges.ac.uk

Photograph from Adobe Photo Stock subscription

Upcoming event: Weaving Stories of Peer Sexual Abuse

Insights from a youth co-created animation project

Weaving Stories is a pilot animation project developed by County-Durham arts education company, Changing Relations, and funded via the VISION research consortium through the Small Projects Fund.

The animation was co-produced with Secondary-aged students, survivors of peer sexual abuse, and an artistic team, to amplify young people’s voices on the theme of unwanted sexual behaviour and the culture that enables it. The students and young survivors shaped every aspect of the animation.

An interdisciplinary Steering Group of academic researchers, creative practitioners, and child protection and sexual violence specialists from a North East school and Rape Crisis centre, were also involved in the project.

With this animation and associated school based learning programme, Changing Relations seeks to influence knowledge, behaviour, and institutional change using the impactful animation as stimulus for reflection. Following this pilot project, VISION and Changing Relations have organised a one-hour webinar for UK policymakers and practitioners to:

Watch the co-created animation (20 minutes)
Hear young people’s perspectives on the key themes and co-production approach
Explore the animation’s potential impact on school cultures, disclosure, help-seeking, and victim-blaming attitudes
Engage in academic-informed analysis of trauma-informed safeguarding and youth-centred approaches to sexual violence prevention
Gain practical insights on using creative participatory approaches to engage young people in conversations about violence and abuse
Consider actionable recommendations for policy and practice
Contribute your reflections

This webinar will be of interest to a wide range of professionals who work with adolescents and / or in violence-prevention. Educators, social workers, academics, and third sector, central and local government policy analysts and researchers in particular may be interested.

There are two dates providing the option to choose between a more practice or policy oriented session:

Thursday 8^th May 1-2pm for policymakers
Wednesday 14^th May 3-4pm for practitioners

Speakers and facilitators

Lisa Davis, Managing Director, Changing Relations
Kate Gorman, Creative Producer and Artistic Director, Changing Relations
Kimberly Cullen, Knowledge Exchange Manager, UKPRP VISION research consortium, City St George’s UoL

Webinar registration

To register for free for either the 8th or 14th of May, please visit our page on Ticket Tailor.

The webinar will be on Microsoft Teams and you will receive the link on the day you choose to attend.

For further information, please contact VISION_Management_Team@citystgeorges.ac.uk

United to End Violence Against Women and Girls: An Online Animated Campaign

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a pressing issue in Iran, a Middle Eastern country marked by its patriarchal structure and systematic and pervasive gender discrimination. Educational programmes addressing this issue are scarce, and cultural barriers often hinder open discussion. The United to End Violence Against Women and Girls campaign aims to break this silence through a series of animated videos in Farsi and English and images designed to inform public discourse and to empower victims to seek support.

The United to End Violence Against Women and Girls project was led by VISION researchers Ladan Hashemi and Sally McManus, in collaboration with colleagues from other UK universities including the University of Bristol, Goldsmiths University, Animation Research Centre at the University for the Creative Arts, and Leeds Beckett University.

They worked with an animation production team in Iran, a social media advisor, and two advisory groups. The advisory groups were Mehre Shams Afarid, an Iran-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), and IKWRO, a London-based charity providing services to women victims of violence from the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) region—to incorporate culturally specific insights.

Although the project initially focused on Iran, engaging with the UK-based NGO revealed an interest in extending its reach. As a result, English subtitles were added to make the animations accessible to a wider audience. This collaboration helped the content resonate with audiences both in Iran and within the global diaspora community, particularly those from the MENA region.

The animations are grounded in evidence from a survey of 453 women in Iran, which explored the manifestation of various forms of VAWG in Iran and women’s perspectives on how to eliminate it. The survey was designed by Fatima Babakhani, CEO of Mehre Shams Afarid.

Key findings from participants’ open-ended responses to the survey showed that, despite structural inequalities and deeply ingrained societal, cultural, and religious norms that perpetuate VAWG, change is possible through education and legal reforms.

As one survey participant noted: “Unfortunately, many still don’t understand what violence truly is. Raising awareness is the solution.”

The first four United to End Violence Against Women and Girls campaign animations focus on coercive control, economic abuse, technology-facilitated abuse, and active bystander interventions, with two more animations in development.

With guidance from an Iranian social media advisor, a digital strategy was developed to maximise the campaign’s impact. Instagram was chosen as the primary distribution platform, as it is the most widely used social media platform in Iran, with over 47 million users. The animations are also shared on YouTube to further extend the campaign’s reach.

Influencers and women’s rights activists with followings from thousands to millions were partnered with to amplify the campaign’s reach. The online campaign officially launched 25th November, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls.

By leveraging evidence-based content and strategic partnerships, we hope to spark meaningful conversations and drive change across Iran and the diaspora communities from the MENA region.

Join us in raising awareness and advocating for change. Please follow and share the campaign links on your social media to help spread the message.

Link to Instagram page

Link to YouTube channel

This project was funded by City St George’s, University of London Higher Education Impact Fund (HEIF) Knowledge Exchange and by the UKPRP VISION research consortium.

For further information, please contact Ladan at ladan.hashemi@city.ac.uk

Violence in the workplace in the United Kingdom

Our latest research examines two nationally representative datasets, The Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS) and the UK Household Panel Survey (UKHLS), to examine variance in the prevalence of workplace violence by industrial sector and occupational group.

The authors, Dr Vanessa Gash and Dr Niels Blom, found 28% of commercial businesses reported criminal victimisation on their premises in the past year, including 8% reporting violent victimisation (namely assaults, robberies, and threats).

Using individual-level data, the report also found 8% of employees had been threatened, insulted or physically attacked at work in the past year, and a similar percentage have felt unsafe at work, with public sector workers most at risk.

The authors call for enhanced recognition of the problem of workplace violence for a significant proportion of workers in multiple different sectors, alongside improved policies to minimise workplace violence going forward.

Figure 1. Prevalence of Violence and Fear of Violence in the Workplace by Sector, UKHLS data 2020-2021, weighted estimates

The report can be downloaded here: VISION Policy Report – Violence in the workplace in the UK: Business and individual-level exposure

Acknowledgements:

The report benefited from input and insights from the Home Office, who provided us with access to the Commercial Victimisation Survey used here.

Photograph licensed by Adobe Stock

Workplace bullying and harassment harms health

Workplace bullying and harassment (WBH) is bad for people’s health, and this negative health impact can manifest in a variety of ways and be long-lasting.

Over a decade ago the UK government initiated the Fair Treatment at Work survey, aiming to ‘place the issue of bullying at work on employers’ agendas’, yet there has been no major initiative since.

Using data from the 2014 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, VISION researchers Annie Bunce, Ladan Hashemi and Sally McManus, along with Carrie Myers and Charlotte Clark from City St George’s, University of London and Stephen Stansfeld from Queen Mary, University of London, examined the prevalence and nature of WBH among workers in England, and associations with mental health.

A clear picture of the severity of the problem of WBH in England is painted by four key findings.

One in ten people in paid work reported having experienced WBH in the past year. This is likely to be an underestimate due to underreporting for various reasons;
Those who reported bullying were more likely to be in a financially disadvantaged position;
Over half of people who reported having been bullied at work identified the perpetrator as a line manager; and
Clinically diagnosed common mental disorder was more than twice as likely in employees with experience of WBH compared with those without, and those exposed to WBH were also twice as likely as others in paid work to screen positive for PTSD.

Taken together these findings demonstrate that WBH is common in UK workplaces, it may be driven and exacerbated by issues of inequality, power and hierarchical organisational structures, and it is associated with depressive and anxiety disorders severe enough to warrant health service intervention and treatment.

This power dynamic should not be forgotten when addressing issues in the workplace, but the complexity of workplace environments creates challenges for identifying, understanding and addressing bullying. Reports of WBH can coincide with performance concerns from managers, and, whilst behaviours intended as legitimate performance management activities might be misinterpreted as bullying by the employee, it is also possible that HR practitioners attribute managerial bullying behaviours to legitimate performance management practice to exonerate mangers and protect the organisation.

This links to a recently published piece for The Conversation by Sally McManus and Kat Ford (Bangor University), which sets out how companies can influence and perpetuate violence in society, including via employment practices that conceal the extent of bullying, sexual harassment and other forms of workplace violence (for further information see Six ways companies fuel violence (theconversation.com).

Also, structural issues in the workplace can create pressure for managers which they then take out on those they manage, managers can be victims of WBH themselves, and organisational culture may perpetuate WBH.

Given such complex power dynamics, it is recommended that organisations involve employees at all levels in the development of policies, and collaboratively review the implementation and performance of policies regularly to ensure they are working for the people they are intended to protect. Rather than prescribed ‘tick box’ policies and responses, creative methods incorporating employees’ perspectives may more likely lead to meaningful change.

Crucially, managers and HRs might not be the most approachable people for victims of WBH. For example, other VISION research has found this to be the case for victims of intimate partner violence and abuse (see VISION Policy Series: The impact of intimate partner violence on job loss and time off work in the UK – City Vision). Therefore, alternative sources of support need to be available within organisations, such as unions and counselling services.

For further information please see the full paper available at: Prevalence and nature of workplace bullying and harassment and associations with mental health conditions in England: a cross-sectional probability sample survey | BMC Public Health (springer.com)

Or please contact Dr Annie Bunce at annie.bunce@city.ac.uk

Illustration licensed by Adobe Photo Stock

Dr Annie Bunce receives award at Lancet Public Health Science conference

Dr Annie Bunce, VISION Research Fellow, was awarded Best Oral Presentation at the Lancet Public Health Science conference in London this November. She presented on the Prevalence, nature and associations of workplace bullying and harassment with mental health conditions in England: a cross-sectional probability sample survey.

Annie’s research, conducted with VISION colleagues Ladan Hashemi, Sally McManus, and others, presents the first nationally representative findings on the prevalence of workplace bullying and harassment in England for over a decade. Annie analysed data from the 2 014 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) to demonstrate: the prevalence of workplace bullying and harassment (WBH) in the working population in England; the nature of WBH experienced, who it was perpetrated by and the types of behaviour it involved; and associations between the experience of WBH and indicators of adverse mental health.

The study is unique in that the APMS makes robust assessments of mental health – operationalising diagnostic criteria – which provides an accurate assessment of clinical need. Implications for employers, policymakers, health services and researchers are outlined.

For the article, please see: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02066-4/fulltext

Please contact Annie at annie.bunce@city.ac.uk for further information.

Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash

Causal discovery for studying sexual abuse and psychotic phenomena

Sexual abuse and bullying are associated with poor mental health in adulthood. Elucidating putative causal relationships between affective and psychotic symptoms may inform the development of therapies. Causal diagrams can help gain insights, but how?

Given a causal diagram, usually represented as a directed acyclic graph (DAG), and observational data from the variables on the graphs, many analytical methods (especially adjustment techniques) allow us to estimate the effect that intervening on a variable is expected to have on another.

In real-world problems, we rarely have a complete picture of an underlying structural mechanism regulating the relationship among different variables. Causal discovery is a technique leveraging statistics and machine learning tools to uncover plausible causal relationships from data, with little to no prior knowledge of them. While learning causal structures from purely observational data relies on unrealistic assumptions (especially causal sufficiency and faithfulness), a causal discovery exercise may help us identify the most promising scenarios to prioritise when designing interventional studies.

In a recent article, now available open access in Psychological Medicine, Dr Giusi Moffa, Statistician affiliated with the University of Basel, Switzerland and colleagues used state-of-the-art sampling methods for inference of directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) on data from the English Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Surveys, to investigate sexual abuse and psychotic phenomena.

The analysis sought to model the interplay among 20 variables, including being a victim of bullying or sexual abuse and a range of psychotic (e.g. paranoia, hallucinations and depression) and affective symptoms (e.g. worry and mood instability) while accounting for the sex of the participant. To respect temporality, we imposed some prior constraints on the DAG structure: childhood sexual abuse and bullying referred to events that were temporally antecedent to the assessment of the psychological variables, and hence they only admit incoming edges from sex and each other.

Contrary to expectations, the procedure favoured models placing paranoia early in the cascade of relationships, close to the abuse variables and generally upstream of affective symptoms. A possible implication is that paranoia follows from early abuse involving bullying or sexual exploitation as a direct consequence. Overall, the results were consistent with sexual abuse and bullying driving a range of affective symptoms via worry. As such, worry may be a salient target for intervention in psychosis.

Check out the paper for a more thorough discussion of the findings (joint work with Jack Kuipers, Elizabeth Kuipers, Paul Bebbington and VISION member Sally McManus).

This is a repost of a blog available on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/causal-discovery-studying-sexual-abuse-psychotic-phenomena-moffa

Paper available open access: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/sexual-abuse-and-psychotic-phenomena-a-directed-acyclic-graph-analysis-of-affective-symptoms-using-english-national-psychiatric-survey-data-erratum/CF603075EBBD5D75E60F327CE01C4050

For further information about the approach: giusi.moffa@unibas.ch