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 data - it 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. Special topics covered in this title include: security systems; police officers; audit cultures; standardized tests; marketing research; and, military recruiters.

School violence is a burning issue these days. This book provides an in-depth analysis of violence prevention programs and an assessment of their effectiveness, using data from observations, individual interviews, and focus groups, as well as published data from the schools. It is distinguished by its focus on the cultural and structural context of school violence and violence prevention efforts. Where most other researchers use quantitative measures, such as surveys, to assess the effectiveness of violence prevention programs, the authors of this book use qualitative research and ethnography to study the environment where such programs take place. Thus, this work--one of only a few ethnographic studies of violence prevention programs in schools--links previous quantitative research on the topic and critical ethnography. "Preventing Violence in Schools: A Challenge to American Democracy"
*includes voices of school students, accused of practicing violence, who have been participants in violence prevention programs;
*analyzes a citywide peer mediation program (who benefits and who does not, who is mediated and who mediates, and what the implications of these findings may be);
*examines the kinds of violence recognized in schools and the ways schools themselves may perpetuate violence; and
*describes a violence prevention program for students at an alternative school.
"Preventing Violence in Schools: A Challenge to American Democracy" is highly relevant for students in courses on urban education, foundations of education, education and social policy, youth and the law, and qualitative research, and for teachers, administrators, and other professionals, such as school psychologists and guidance counselors, at the middle and high school levels.

Equipment developed for wartime is now being seen more often in everyday institutions, and even our schools have become sites of high-tech security and, some would say, paranoia. The justification for the presence of this network of surveillance, screening, detection and tracking systems is that it is the only sensible reaction to the fears for personal safety brought about by the school shootings and terrorist attacks of recent years - we must protect our children, perhaps even from their school friends. Casella here questions this assumption, shining an investigative light on the political and commercial forces that have led to the present climate of fear. He shows how expensive security equipment is sold in the same slick business-like way as any other commodity, and highlights the trend of turning schools into corporatized and militarized zones that prepare young people for a life spent accepting limitations of certain freedoms in return for an ill-defined and problematic concept of safety.

School violence is a burning issue these days. This book provides an in-depth analysis of violence prevention programs and an assessment of their effectiveness, using data from observations, individual interviews, and focus groups, as well as published data from the schools. It is distinguished by its focus on the cultural and structural context of school violence and violence prevention efforts. Where most other researchers use quantitative measures, such as surveys, to assess the effectiveness of violence prevention programs, the authors of this book use qualitative research and ethnography to study the environment where such programs take place. Thus, this work--one of only a few ethnographic studies of violence prevention programs in schools--links previous quantitative research on the topic and critical ethnography. "Preventing Violence in Schools: A Challenge to American Democracy"
*includes voices of school students, accused of practicing violence, who have been participants in violence prevention programs;
*analyzes a citywide peer mediation program (who benefits and who does not, who is mediated and who mediates, and what the implications of these findings may be);
*examines the kinds of violence recognized in schools and the ways schools themselves may perpetuate violence; and
*describes a violence prevention program for students at an alternative school.
"Preventing Violence in Schools: A Challenge to American Democracy" is highly relevant for students in courses on urban education, foundations of education, education and social policy, youth and the law, and qualitative research, and for teachers, administrators, and other professionals, such as school psychologists and guidance counselors, at the middle and high school levels.

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 data - it 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. Special topics covered in this title include: security systems; police officers; audit cultures; standardized tests; marketing research; and, military recruiters.