Navigating sensitive content in secondary English: teachers’ use of content warnings when teaching Shakespeare

Abstract

This article reports on a small-scale mixed methods survey, conducted as part of a larger funded project, examining how secondary English literature teachers approach violence and other potentially disturbing material in Shakespeare’s plays. Forty teachers in England completed an online questionnaire comprising both open and closed questions, generating quantitative and qualitative data. Focusing on content warnings, the study reveals considerable variation in teachers’ views and classroom practices. Some routinely employ warnings, while others worry that they may be counterproductive, increasing anxiety or offering limited preparation for difficult material beyond the classroom. While the wider project also gathered data from young people, the present article draws exclusively on the teacher survey findings. Teachers were more likely to provide warnings for modern texts than for Shakespeare, whose historical distance was often assumed to lessen emotional impact. Across responses, a recurring theme was a perceived lack of training and institutional guidance for managing sensitive content, with teachers relying largely on personal judgement and informal strategies.