Abstract:
This presentation explores research looking at how surveillance mechanisms on social media turn teachers’ private lives public. Specifically, it will explore the problem that teachers face interacting on social media. The focus will be on data gathered that is reviewed how teachers experience surveillance from parents, students, employers, colleagues and tech companies. During this round table I would like to discuss what has emerged so far concerning the impact surveillance has on teachers’ ability to interact in the online spaces as both private citizens and publicly accountable teachers.
The focus will be on analysing data drawing on Foucault’s theory of governmentality that states how sovereign power, disciplinary power and pastoral power operate to govern, to illustrate how teachers experience surveillance and the impact it has on their interactions in the online space, and their responses to policy in the field.
The data was gathered from 125 respondents through a qualitative survey. Data analysis was conducted by coding the data and exploring themes in open form responses. Thus far data has yielded specific areas of focus around teacher concern about who is watching them, and for what purposes, what rules they are imposing on themselves in their interactions, and the degree to which they understand the social media space as being either professional or personal and what implications this has for their use. This research is important because it helps to frame the way professional identity is being shaped in the social media space. It also looks at delineation of what is private, and teachers’ ability to be themselves beyond the school gates. As the teachers are increasingly critiqued for politicisation within the classroom it is important to consider how individuals experience this in their private lives, and to consider whether it is possible for teachers to act as private citizens with views beyond the classroom without experiencing negative repercussions in the professional space.
The focus will be on analysing data drawing on Foucault’s theory of governmentality that states how sovereign power, disciplinary power and pastoral power operate to govern, to illustrate how teachers experience surveillance and the impact it has on their interactions in the online space, and their responses to policy in the field.
The data was gathered from 125 respondents through a qualitative survey. Data analysis was conducted by coding the data and exploring themes in open form responses. Thus far data has yielded specific areas of focus around teacher concern about who is watching them, and for what purposes, what rules they are imposing on themselves in their interactions, and the degree to which they understand the social media space as being either professional or personal and what implications this has for their use. This research is important because it helps to frame the way professional identity is being shaped in the social media space. It also looks at delineation of what is private, and teachers’ ability to be themselves beyond the school gates. As the teachers are increasingly critiqued for politicisation within the classroom it is important to consider how individuals experience this in their private lives, and to consider whether it is possible for teachers to act as private citizens with views beyond the classroom without experiencing negative repercussions in the professional space.