WHY THIS SMALL DUTCH TOWN IS TEACHING ‘ADOLESCENCE’ IN SCHOOLS

“What makes a man a man?” Gijs Korenblik, a social studies teacher in Warnsveld, a small town in the eastern Netherlands, posed the question one day this spring to his high school students. “It’s a difficult question, even for adults,” the teacher conceded.

Mr. Korenblik’s class focused on online bullying and influencers in the so-called manosphere, and was built around the Netflix series “Adolescence.” Using clips from the show, he prompted students to talk about their experiences with both online and offline bullying, as well as about their thoughts on masculinity and gender roles.

The class is just one example of how educators are trying to counter misogyny and other forms of online hatred that young people can find on their social media feeds.

“Adolescence,” which was released more than a year ago, is about a 13-year-old boy who is suspected of killing a girl after seemingly falling down a rabbit hole of online misogyny. The show tapped into widespread anxiety about what teenagers see online and how such content affects them.

The idea that “Adolescence” could play a role in encouraging class discussions was propelled by the former British prime minister Keir Starmer, who last year backed an initiative to screen the show in high schools. Officials and lawmakers in Belgium, France and the Netherlands have announced plans to develop teaching materials around the series.

In England, teaching about online misogyny will become mandatory starting this month. Harriet Over, a professor of psychology at the University of York, in northern England, leads a research group helping to develop classes to fulfill the requirement, though they do not use “Adolescence” specifically, she said.

Educational materials and guides about online misogyny generally have also been designed in Australia, Belgium, Canada and the Netherlands.

In England, Ms. Over said, the courses her team was working on were meant to help students combat misinformation and sexist stereotyping. She said in an interview that children were “almost inevitably going to come up against these sexist myths, like women aren’t as clever as men, or men can’t be kind and caring.”

It would be safer, she said, for them to be able to learn about these stereotypes “from trusted adults in an environment where it can be constructively challenged, rather than in the form of toxic memes on the internet.”

- Author: Koba Ryckewaert, The New York Times

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