Against Safety at School: Young People Resisting a Dangerous Conviviality Regime

• In Event: Colonialism, Conviviality, and Othering: An International Perspective

Abstract

Objectives and Purposes
Over the last few decades, the idea of creating safe learning environments has attracted increasing attention in education, being advocated by scholars and policy makers from a wide range of ideological standpoints (e.g., Carter Andrews et al. 2018; Dylan 2012; Rose 2001). Despite the popularity of this idea, however, the meanings of safety in education have rarely been questioned (Flensner and Von der Lippe 2019), not even with the Covid-19 pandemic. As Smith (2014) critiques, safety in educational contexts appears to take on an almost sacred value. From sociological perspectives, some scholars have problematized educational claims for safety by contrasting children and adults’ understandings of safety (e.g., Moore et al. 2015) and by challenging the safeguarding/paternalistic approaches that often underlie these claims (Warrington and Larkins 2019). Yet, what is undertaken in schools in the name of safety is still largely unknown.

Theoretical Framework & Modes of Inquiry
In this symposium, I present a study conducted in Aotearoa New Zealand where the word ‘safety’ has become paramount in educational debates, particularly those related to the inclusion of marginalized students (e.g., Cavanagh et al. 2012; Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand 2021). The data reported on are drawn from a larger qualitative research project on young people’s experiences of the Covid-19 lockdowns in this country, which has the ethical approval of [removed for reviewing purposes]. Through a critical ethnographic inquiry (Fitzpatrick 2011; Madison 2005), I delve into the safety policy discourses and narratives of resistance of seven Pasifika female students from a high school located in a sub-region of Auckland known as a ‘brown’ place in the popular imagination (Allen and Bruce 2017). Methods for data collection consisted of focus groups, in-depth interviews, field notes, artefact analysis (i.e., social media posts) and analysis of school public documents and official newsletters. As can be seen through the analysis of the policy discourses and the experiences of the students, the idea of safety in education entangles with discourses of responsible citizenship that produce a ‘regime of truth’ (Foucault 1980), similar to what Author (2020) calls a ‘regime of conviviality’, in which anything that threatens the idea of safety (e.g., conflict and dissent) is displaced from the civic culture of schools. The narratives of the Pasifika participants show the nuanced forms in which the regime of safety at school was used to silence their fights against ethnic discrimination that connect with a longer history of Polynesian activism in the country (Anae, Tamu, and Iuli 2015; Ritchie 2021).

Significance
These results connect with previous studies (e.g., Ferguson et al. 2008; Hunter et al. 2016) that have shown how schooling practices such as a Western-biased curriculum, cross-cultural misunderstandings or teachers’ lower expectations have traditionally segregated Pasifika students. The presentation concludes with a call to politicise the uses of safety in education and the citizen subjectivities that they shape and exclude.

Author

• Marta Estelles, University of Waikato