Why This Small Dutch Town Is Teaching ‘Adolescence’ in School

What the report says

A small town in the Netherlands is using the Netflix series “Adolescence” as classroom material, according to The New York Times World. The show is being presented as a prompt for students to discuss gender roles and the pressures of online bullying, with educators treating it as a contemporary entry point into broader social questions.

The newspaper says the lesson is taking place in a Dutch school context, though the supplied material does not identify the specific town, school, or educators involved. The basic idea is to use a widely watched streaming drama to help students talk about how boys and girls are expected to behave, and how digital spaces can shape harmful behavior and peer dynamics.

As background, schools in several countries have increasingly drawn on popular culture to spark discussion of media literacy, social media, and relationships. In this case, the reported goal is not entertainment but dialogue: helping young people reflect on the influence of online communities and the ways misogynistic or bullying attitudes can spread.

The development matters because it shows how educators are looking for new ways to address issues that extend beyond the classroom, especially as debates about gender, social media, and youth behavior remain prominent across Europe. The available source material is limited, so further details about the program’s scale or reception were not provided by the publisher.