The recent rise of so-called ‘surveillance schools’ is often justified given the need to engender a safe and secure educational environment for students; a fusion of pedagogical and security motives. This paper contributes knowledge regarding the attitudes and lived experiences of teenagers in response to school-based surveillance. Focus groups centre discussions on two areas: the effectiveness of policies regarding technology in the classroom as well as school-wide restrictions on Wi-Fi access, and the effectiveness of surveillance technologies geared to actively monitor student online activities. We explore a bifurcation of attitudes revealing both resistance to surveillance school practices as well as strong support for monitoring technologies perceived to be effective in addressing cyber-risks such as cyberbullying. Our findings point to the need for empirically assessing contexts where support or antagonism towards surveillance occurs, suggesting neither isomorphic resistance nor wholescale acquiescence.Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council - Insight Development Gran
