Schools Under Surveillance - (Critical Issues in Crime and Society) by Torin Monahan (Paperback)

About the Book

Schools under Surveillance gathers together some of the very best researchers studying surveillance and discipline in contemporary public schools. Surveillance is not simply about monitoring or tracking individuals and their dataùit is about the structuring of power relations through human, technical, or hybrid control mechanisms.

Book Synopsis

Schools under Surveillance gathers together some of the very best researchers studying surveillance and discipline in contemporary public schools. Surveillance is not simply about monitoring or tracking individuals and their dataùit is about the structuring of power relations through human, technical, or hybrid control mechanisms. Essays cover a broad range of topics including police and military recruiters on campus, testing and accountability regimes such as No Child Left Behind, and efforts by students and teachers to circumvent the most egregious forms of surveillance in public education. Each contributor is committed to the continued critique of the disparity and inequality in the use of surveillance to target and sort students along lines of race, class, and gender.

Review Quotes

"Schools under Surveillance raises a set of important and critical questions about how public schools have become one of the most surveilled of contemporary spaces. Monahan and Torres have put together a fine collection of provocative work that captures the essence of these new school accountability regimes."--William G. Staples "author of Everyday Surveillance: Vigilance and Visibility in Postmodern Life " (1/1/2011 12:00:00 AM)

"A fascinating and sophisticated look at the structure of power relations present in the security practices of public education. Focusing on 'the other side' of school safety policies which typically do not fully consider the effects of various control mechanisms, Schools Under Surveillance represents a major addition to the literature that will undoubtedly be of great value to scholars, practitioners, and policy makers alike."--Henry Pontell "University of California, Irvine" (6/22/2009 12:00:00 AM)

"After reading Schools Under Surveillance one is forever impacted by the gripping ethnographic moments of multiple school contexts where surveillance is embodied and resisted. This book is a must read for undergraduate and graduate students in sociology, anthropology, psychology and education interested in the issues of social control, culture, power and resistance in schools."-- "Contemporary Sociology" (1/1/2012 12:00:00 AM)

"This volume's interdisciplinarity makes the collection a provocative and stimulating reflection on cultures of control but also provides a brilliant overview of creative forms of resistance."-- "Surveillance and Society" (1/1/2010 12:00:00 AM)

"A thought-provoking anthology."-- "H-Education" (5/1/2010 12:00:00 AM)

"A thought-provoking anthology."-- "H-Education"

About the Author

TORIN MONAHAN is an associate professor of human and organizational development at the Peabody College of Education and Human Development and an associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University. He is the editor and author of several books, including Surveillance and Security: Technological Politics and Power in Everyday Life.

RODOLFO D. TORRES is a professor of political economy and urban studies at the University of California, Irvine.