You Can Run but You Can't Hide: The Impact of Surveillance Technology in School

• In Event: Reorientation and Transformation in Educational Change

Abstract

Modern society is rife with surveillance technologies. CCTV cameras record activity in urban cores. GPS and smartphone signals can be pinged to pinpoint user locations. Even within classrooms, school safety officers patrol the halls, CCTV cameras are fixed to public areas, and emails can be monitored for content. Security cameras were installed in 93.6% of American high schools, 91.5% of middle schools, and 77.9% of primary schools during the 2018 school year (National Center for Educational Statistics, n.d.).

This conceptual roundtable session focuses on the origins of our surveillance society, how an ethos of surveillance has filtered into all aspects of K-12 schools, and some of the more deleterious effects of this surveillance.

Author

• Dino Sossi, Teachers College, Columbia University; NYU; Columbia SIPA