“I’m Watching You”: Surveillance and Control in Schooling

• In Event: Racialized Consequences of Discipline, Surveillance, Violence, and Out-of-School Environment

Abstract

This study contributes to scholarship on surveillance in schools. Based on over a year of embedded participant observation, I describe the use of intensive video and audio surveillance at Abundance Junior High School, a predominantly Black 6-8 grade school in the rural American South. I argue that despite enduring educator and student belief in the “evidentiary protection” provided by school-wide surveillance, it often does not result in greater fairness or protection for students, though it does for teachers. I explore cases in which students are successful in leveraging surveillance to resist punishment, while also illustrating how both inconsistent review of camera footage and its use as a mechanism for control and compliance contribute to greater restrictions on and punishment of students.

Author

• Meaghan Mingo, University of Notre Dame