The New American School: preparation for post‐industrial discipline

Abstract

Abstract In this article we consider how broad shifts in social relations over the past 30 years have given rise to new social control regimes in US public schools. We argue that the contemporary mechanisms of control engendered by mass incarceration and post‐industrialization have re‐shaped school discipline. To illustrate contemporary discipline in the 'New American School,' we discuss the emergence of police officers and technological surveillance in schools. These two strategies of school social control facilitate the link between courts and schools, and expose students to both the salience of crime control in everyday life and to the demands of workers in a post‐industrial world. By incorporating police officers and technological surveillance into the school safety regime, schools shape the experiences of students in ways that reflect modern relationships of dependency, inequality, and instability vis‐à‐vis the contemporary power dynamics of the post‐industrialist labor market and the neoliberal state. Notes 1. The shifts we describe have not ended democratic participation, of course, but have transformed both its meaning and its mechanisms, changing how citizens interact with each other and the state. 2. See http://www.nasro.com 3. Note that our intention is merely to document the mode of SRO intervention, not to debate whether the situation should have been perceived as a criminal problem instead of a counseling issue. 4. It is important to note that the same sheriff's department has recently been sued for its use of a 'jail cam,' an Internet camera that recorded and broadcasted live images from the county detention center (Lynch, Citation2004).