Parental Perceptions of School Safety and School Resource officers in South Phoenix

• In Event: Sociology of Education Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 2. Surveillance and Resistance in Schools

Abstract

The expansion of School Resource Officers (SROs) in American public schools since the late 1990s has been justified through constructed appeals to safety, despite limited evidence that police presence deters school violence, and substantial research linking SROs to increased disciplinary referrals, arrests, and juvenile justice involvement, particularly for boys and students of color. This study examines how parents in a racially and economically minoritized community construct school safety and interpret the role of SROs within broader trajectories of school-based criminalization. Drawing on grounded theory analysis of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with parents and guardians in South Phoenix, Arizona, we analyze how safety is defined, evaluated, and legitimized. Preliminary findings indicate that participants define safety primarily in terms of physical protection, visible supervision, and institutional accountability, but trust in SROs is conditional rather than durable. While some parents view officers as protective deterrents, others interpret their presence through their own histories of concentrated policing and racialized surveillance in marginalized neighborhoods. In the absence of clear institutional communication about officers’ roles, parents rely on lived experience to assess legitimacy. By centering marginalized parental perspectives, this study demonstrates how institutional authority in schools is socially constructed, negotiated, and unevenly legitimated within contexts of structural inequality.

Authors

• Erin Whitesitt, Northern Arizona University

• Maryssa Galaviz