Citizens fit for the 21st century? The role of school design in facilitating citizenship and self-governance in young people

Introduction

Citizenship education has taken a rather different course in Scotland compared with other jurisdictions in the UK. Its importance is illustrated by the fact that education for citizenship was at the centre of legislative processes in Scotland and formed an integral part of the strategic vision for education in the ‘National Priorities’ (Scottish Government, 2002). Priority four: ‘Values and Citizenship’ highlights that it is necessary for schools: ‘to work with parents to teach pupils respect for self and one another and their interdependence with other members of their neighbourhood and society and to teach them the duties and responsibilities of citizenship in a democratic society’. More recently, ‘responsible citizenship’ is one of the four key capacities identified in the ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ (2004) which is currently being implemented across all Scottish schools. This radical policy development (Priestly et al., 2010) marks an attempt to move away from prescriptive approaches to teaching and learning, and seeks to encourage a degree of teacher autonomy with regard to the curriculum. The central aim of the new curriculum is to foster the following core capacities in children:

The Curriculum for Excellence is explicitly child-centred in which the concept of the child’s is constituted in a particular way. First and foremost the child is viewed as an active and self-regulating learner, rather than simply a passive recipient of teacher instruction. Moreover, the fact that children should take responsibility is emphasized and that they make choices about the pace and direction of their learning thus enabling autonomous action. Active learning is privileged as a superior form of pedagogy, which is viewed as especially suited for developing the four capacities in younger children. Indeed active citizenship is highlighted in the Scottish approach to citizenship where it is argued that children and young people learn more deeply about citizenship by participating in school life and being actively engaged in decision-making processes (Learning Teaching Scotland, 2002; Biesta, 2009).

The positive and dynamic images of the child evident in the Curriculum for Excellence however have significant parallels with broader developments within the social sciences and specifically the way in which children are conceptualized within the social study of childhood. This model stresses children’s abilities: they are competent social actors and full participants in the social worlds they inhabit. Today, this includes the more widely accepted notion that children are indeed active agents:

No longer are children seen as homogenously passive, adults-in-waiting but as heterogeneous, active agents playing out their own lives within the structures that surround them. (Mathews, 2005: 271)

Theoretical developments regarding conceptualizations of children generated within the multi-disciplinary field of childhood studies have increasingly permeated thinking across a range of domains in the social sciences, including educational policy innovation and research. For example, the principle of taking the views of children and young people’s into account in the policy making process is an encouraging development across the four countries of the UK (for example, Drakeford et al., 2009). There is also a rapidly expanding body of empirical studies which catalogue the everyday lives of children from an explicit social competence model of childhood (James and Prout, 1990). However, research undertaken in the field of education for citizenship rarely makes overt connections with these advances in the wider social sciences. Nevertheless, claims that children are merely ‘citizens-in-waiting’ have been questioned by empirical evidence (Maitles et al., 2005), as has young people’s lack of political interest (Pattie et al., 2005) and their motivation to organize and actively engage in political protest (Cunningham et al., 2004).

Schools, social control, childhood and citizenship

Schools are clearly defined and structured spaces and in the UK their buildings are immediately and unambiguously recognizable as schools (Gordon et al., 2000). Internal features such as formal entrance spaces, displays of the schools’ achievements (for example, trophies and school photographs), long corridors, dining, play and recreational spaces for pupils and areas exclusively for teachers are common aspects of the topographies of schools. Schools are also key sites of socialization where children learn how to behave appropriately in designated spaces, including classrooms, social spaces and outside playgrounds (Brown, 2007). Since the inception of mass schooling, an enduring function of schools has been the social control of young citizens (Devine, 1995; Harber, 2002; Brown et al., 2008). This, as the educationalist Dewey noted over a century ago, is enacted through the physical and social fabric of schools, even more so than curriculum and the content of lessons (Kupchik et al., 2006: 160). A durable feature of schooling is the monitoring of pupil movement, en masse at regular intervals throughout the school day. As in the past schools today remain characterized by: ‘buildings, classrooms, corridors, timetables, bells and security devices’ (Burke et al., 2008: 160).

Leonard (2006: 3) suggests that schools occupy an ambiguous place in the landscape of childhood because they: ‘straddle the boundaries between the public and private spaces of childhood’. Schools are certainly unique and private spaces of childhood – largely created and designed by adults – to educate a single category and age-grade of persons. Schools, like the idea of childhood, also hold enormous symbolic power. School architecture not only embodies social attitudes towards children and their socialization but cultural norms regarding the kind of society we envisage for our future citizens (Burke et al., 2008). Recently, the media in the UK has highlighted the ways in which the design of some new school academies has drawn heavily on the world of commerce. The design of Westminster Academy in London, for example, was based on ideas from corporate business, replicating the passageways, workspaces and lighting patterns of financial institutions. According to the company of architects commissioned to design Westminster Academy: ‘The plan of the school was driven by ideas of connectivity with a ‘market place’ (for example, the financial market place). In Schilling’s (1991: 23) seminal work on school spaces he maintained that space should not be simply viewed as the setting where interaction takes place but maintained that space is: ‘deeply implicated on the production of individual identities and social inequalities’. Drawing on the work of Shilling this paper suggests that the design of school buildings is profoundly implicated in social processes that help cultivate active agency in young people. The recent modernization of many school estates across the UK raise some very timely questions regarding the connections between the quality and organization of school premises and our aspirations and expectations as a nation for educating citizens fit for the challenges of the 21st century.

The study

The focus of this study was conceived in the context of an unprecedented programme of school refurbishment and new school building investment across the UK. Capital investment in school buildings stood at £700 million in 1997 and the budget for the Schools for the Future project (BSF) increased by over £5 billion a year in 2005/6 (Watson, 2007). While funding is at present under threat, such high levels of investment in the modernization of school estates, throws into sharp relief the relevance of school design for understanding schooling and citizenship in the new millennium.

Since relatively little is known regarding the organization of space and its impact on the socialization of young people in Scottish schools, an exploratory, qualitative approach was adopted for this study. In keeping with an exploratory approach we were sensitive to unanticipated issues which emerged as fieldwork progressed. Although open-ended in approach, the following broad questions were addressed from the onset of the study:

Between 2007 and 2009 the Scottish Government funded a total of 200 new or refurbished schools. The model of financing this ambitious building programme across Scotland, as elsewhere in UK, was via public-private partnerships (PPP) schemes.

An important implication of this financial arrangement is that the school estate is owned by the private companies involved and is leased back to the local authority (LA) for a period of 30 years. Subsequently, the school building is transferred to LA ownership. This innovation, in addition to the substantial investment in school estates (for example, £2.3 billion since 2002 in Scotland) provided the ideal opportunity to compare a new school build under this scheme with a much older, traditional school premises.

In order to compare the impact of school design on life in contrasting types of school buildings, schools were purposively sampled from one large urban LA in Scotland. From their register of schools that met the criteria of being a newly built school (defined as being built in the past 7 years), or a traditional and long established school site (defined as over 50-years-old) were invited to take part. The first two schools to agree to participate became the sample schools.

Guided tours led by young people and the school caretaker

The layout of each school building was explored in the first phase of fieldwork, which involved a series of guided tours of the school premises and surrounding grounds led by the school caretaker and pupils. In each school, three school tours were undertaken and followed a similar format inside and outside of each school. The first school tour was led by a member of the janitorial staff who had in-depth knowledge regarding the school site and its management. This was followed up with tours led by one female and then one male senior pupil. Senior pupil tours were most informative – young people were clearly proud of their schools achievements, but they also provided a rich source of ‘insider’ information (for example, where teachers smoked, where different sub groups of pupils ‘hung out’, and hot spots for trouble). Given that fieldwork involved repeated school visits, a series of opportunistic observations were carried out in, and around each school.

Shadowing Year 2 pupils and pupil-teacher interviews

School tours were followed-up by shadowing one class of Year 2 pupils (12-13-year-olds), over the course of one day from the registration period through to the lunch break. Year 2 pupils were selected because they are at the early stage of their secondary school career, but have recently become familiar with the school’s geography and expectations regarding appropriate behaviour. In total 36 interviews were undertaken: 22 semi-structured interviews with young people, in addition to interviews with 14 teachers. Consent information, which explained the aims of the project, confidentiality and anonymity, rights to withdraw and the rationale for the project were provided in a user-friendly written form for all participants. Permission was sought to record interviews with both pupils and teachers.

A range of pupils, including a fairly even spread of both boys and girls were asked to take part from the year group that was shadowed. This meant that young people had had previous contact with the researcher. With regard to teachers a similar range of subject specialist and promoted staff were accessed in each school including religious studies, languages, physical education (PE) and the senior management team. Owing to their unique role within the school PE teachers were able to provide useful insights into designated spaces in the school, the use of gym hall and outside areas.

Semi-structured interviews with pupils and teachers addressed the following topic areas:

Background to the ‘old’ and ‘new’ schools

With regard to pupil populations and staffing levels, the old and new-build schools had very similar school rolls and complements of school staff. Both schools had over 1000 pupils and approximately 90 teaching staff. With respect to location, the old-build was situated in the midst of a lively, multi-racial locality comprising a variety of shops and mixed social and private housing. This school was originally opened in the 1930s, and had undergone various extensions and refurbishments over an extended period, during the 1970s and more recently. The school campus was particularly large and housed an impressive array of gyms (four in total), football and netball pitches, plus an indoor swimming pool. The old-build also had a wide variety of accessible outdoor recreational spaces where pupils could socialize.

The new-build PPP-funded school had been opened in 2002 to serve the catchment areas of two former schools. In contrast to the old-build, the new school was very compact with limited outside spaces for pupils. While the school contained two gym halls, these doubled as exam halls over the exam period. This practice can be explained by the fact that in a number of PPP schemes the efficient use of space and optimizing multiple occupancy has been a design strategy in some circumstances driven by budget constraints. As a consequence, the more recent school build had a very high percentage of room occupation and use, estimated at 94%, as compared to less than 78% for older school premises. This meant that the drama theatre often doubled as a classroom and the dining hall was situated within the large social space inside the school. In marked contrast to the old-build school, the new-build had few attractive outside spaces where young people could congregate and featured one small, hard surfaced play area. This was adjacent to the main social area inside the school building and was overlooked by classrooms on two levels.

While not an original focus of interest in this study, the use of CCTV technologies emerged as an important disciplinary tool for the control of pupil behaviour on the guided tours undertaken in each school. In common with many schools across the UK, CCTV cameras were located around the perimeter of both buildings, including play spaces and also inside, strategically sited near fire alarms. CCTV cameras were regularly used in both schools and viewing screens were intermittently monitored by caretakers. In the new school, the use of CCTV cameras was extensive as they were situated in corridors, near main entrances and all the main doors were alarmed. The extensive use of CCTV cameras was explained by one member of staff in the fact that under the PPP scheme, the maintenance of the school estate remained the responsibility of the private company, or companies involved in the original funding partnership. As a result this was thought to encourage the installation of school security measures in new-build schools.

Everyday life in school: Pupil mobility and containment

Key differences were found between pupil and teachers’ accounts of their daily lives in the old-build, as compared with life in the new-build school. Most notably the availability of a variety and range of designated spaces or conversely a lack of types of spaces were found to have crucial implications for the nature of social relationships in school and the regulation of pupils’ behaviour. While most pupils were positive about their schools, it became evident that day to day life in differed considerably in the social and professional pressures experienced by the pupils and staff as a consequence of the layout and facilities. A salient issue was the accessibility of a variety of leisure spaces in the old-build, in contrast to the constant pressure on space which characterized the organization of daily life in the new-build. With regard to the latter, the multiple use of space not only determined the deployment of staff but strategies for the management of pupil mobility and the efficient supervision of the traffic flow of pupils. Indeed teachers from the new-build expressed heightened concerns about the safety of pupils due to the pressure on space, especially in relation to spatial pressure points where the movement of pupils was viewed as risky and complex to manage (for example, exit points from the social space, which were regarded as particularly tight).

In pupil interviews, young people were asked to describe a typical school day, how they travelled to school and where they spent their time over the course of an ordinary day. Pupils from the older school described spending their free time engaged in a variety of social activities in a range of designated spaces, inside and outside of school. This included spending time in three different playground spaces; a landscaped seating area; school pitches with basketball facilities and a dedicated dining area with an adjacent social space for all pupils. Moreover, pupils in the old-build reported that they were permitted, during wet break times to congregate with friends inside the school in approved corridors. Clearly this would not have been possible in the new-build due to the fact that the corridors were far too narrow to allow this. The extensive school campus in the old-build thus provided an array of options and choices for pupils as to where they spent their time and with whom while at school. The following pupil explained why she liked her secondary school highlighting her new found independence:

It’s just bigger and it has got more playgrounds, cos in primary you had to stay in the back playground. So here you can just walk about anywhere you want. (Pupil 2, old-build)

An appreciation of open sense of space, free will and autonomy was also recognized by teachers in the old-build:

I am sure the kids feel that sort of sense of space and they can run around and have got freedom to do stuff … I don’t feel in ‘Clifton’, possibly in another school I might feel that, but I don’t feel in ‘Clifton’ like I am hemmed in. (Teacher 1, old-build)

Consequently there was a greater sense that pupils self-directed their social interactions which also spilled out into the local area at lunchtimes, as pupils left and re-entered the school over the midday break. From the point of view of teachers, the school was integrated into the local community and the senior management team had a visible on street presence at lunch time, patrolling the local area. This involved trouble shooting in known hot spots, such as the local garages and outside busy takeaways, popular with young people. The management of outside behaviour was also monitored by the use of ‘walkie talkies’, which meant that the school caretaker could relay information about the behaviour of pupils to those teachers on lunchtime duty outside of the school.

Pupils from the new-build gave quite different accounts of their mobility. They spontaneously expressed more fears about the outside environment not only immediately bordering the school but with regard to the local area. Some girls indicated that they spent little time outside walking around the school grounds because they felt safer inside school. This is not surprising considering the school grounds were bordered by a railway line, a busy arterial road and a river, on a site physically removed from a readily identifiable community. Reportedly, LA personnel had regarded it as vital that the new site was socially and geographically ‘neutral’, in order to appeal to parents and pupils from two distinct neighbourhoods with strong local identities. Pupils also raised the topic of potential threats from ‘outsiders’, including local gangs from a nearby estate, and a few pupils mentioned an incident where a teacher was attacked in the school grounds. This meant that the football pitches were now locked and out of bounds to pupils. A passageway near to the railway station was identified as a dangerous place by the majority of young people because it was area where crowds of older pupils congregated to smoke and drink during the course of the school day.

With respect to designated outside play spaces in the new-build, there was a small, hard surfaced play ground, immediately outside the large internal social area. This playground was described as ‘like a prison courtyard – it’s like a compound’ by one teacher. It was enclosed by a high perimeter fence, which was locked to ensure safety of pupils in school over timetabled periods. At the corner of this recreational space was a CCTV camera and two sides of the play area were overlooked by classroom windows with large expanses of glass. This not only facilitated what Kumar Katyal (2002) terms ‘natural surveillance’, or in-person observation but meant that ball games were strictly forbidden in this area. The extent of adult supervision of children’s recreational spaces and playgrounds in UK schools, has been the focus of mounting criticism. Such close supervision of children’s social interactions is regarded as detrimental for their maturation, limiting opportunities for autonomous action and decision making (Blatchford, 1998; Thompson, 2005). Some teachers in the new-build were also concerned about the impact of lack of suitable outside spaces for pupils’ physical and emotional well-being: ‘we are not allowing them just to run off their natural energy’.

Crowd control, bottlenecks and social spaces

As indicated, policing pupil movement en masse is an enduring feature of everyday life in schools and this was certainly the case for the schools that took part in this study. The efficient movement of pupils was closely monitored in each school. This involved the nomination of different entrance and exit points to avoid congestion at critical points in the school day. Teachers’ drew on a vocabulary of traffic management to describe this key aspect of school life and terms such as ‘traffic flow’ and ‘bottlenecks’ were used regularly by teachers. A one way ‘traffic system’ was in place in each school, the official direction confirmed visually by bold arrows on display in corridors.

Corridors in the new-build were constricted so that these narrow spaces were thus viewed as threatening and aggressive spaces by pupils. Pupils explained that they found it ‘very hard’ to adjust to the constant pushing and jostling in the crowded corridors that were inadequate for the large volume of social traffic that regularly moved through them. The following young people described collisions, involving jostling and shoving as being commonplace:

People get pushed and can fall and you will try and help them. But people still push past. (Pupil 3, new-build)

You get pushed and shoved, and everybody just pushes you downstairs, you just hold on to the banister. (Pupil 7, new-build)

The day-to-day challenge of navigating the crowded corridors was an issue that many pupils said they adjusted to as they became accustomed to life in their new school and they described how they coped by developing defensive and proactive aggressive responses. Teachers, in the new-build similarly identified corridors as hotspots for aggressive incidents, reporting that these spaces were: ‘too tight’ for the large numbers of pupils and were: ‘a disaster waiting to happen’. Pupil safety appeared to be a particular anxiety for teachers in the new school and they were acutely aware of potentially dangerous areas around the school such as the bottom of stairwells and tight corners around exit points. This was reported to require extra vigilance on their part and the close supervision of pupil movement between lessons.

As suggested, opportunities for pupil sociability and interaction were quite different in the schools and in the old-build pupils exercised more choice both inside and outside of the building. The multiple use of space was a key principle informing the design of the new-build and the social space was required hold well over 1000 pupils in one single area. Most pupils from the new-build reported that they spent most of their break times inside school, confined in this large, undifferentiated, open-plan social area and during a wet interval or lunchtime it was particularly congested:

They are crammed right in, and it’s a recipe for disaster – they are actually very good here, very good, because I have seen it in my last school … it just takes one. You can imagine 1200 of them … they need to get out and let steam off at the interval. (Teacher 3, new-build)

The organization of this single, communal space clearly impacted on the nature of social relationships, which necessitated teacher surveillance of pupil behaviour. This demanded efficient planning and time management on the part of senior managers so that the full complement of the management team was available to patrol this space at break times. The volume of noise generated by the close proximity of many people was considerable and was exacerbated by rainfall on the metal roof. Raised levels of noise were observed to heighten tensions in this overcrowded space. Teachers said that they were especially aware that fights could quickly erupt in this pressurized environment and that most of the school population could directly witness any conflicts taking place. Given the wide variety of spaces available to different groups of pupils in the old-build, this was a less of an issue in the traditional school building.

Transitional spaces such as corridors and foyers are considered important since they are typically designed into buildings to act as a buffer and spatial link between outside and inside spaces. These, as well as specialist areas were noticeably absent in the new building. This had implications for the management of inside and outside behaviour because there was no ‘cool down’ space such as a linking corridor between the outside play area and the large internal social space. A teacher described how pupils behaved when they came in from the outside:

Because there is no transition between the outside and in the classroom, and they come in here as though they are still in the playground. I think that is a big problem. (Teacher 1, new-build)

Transitional spaces serve an important social function because they provide a marker between different social areas with contrasting purposes and expectations about acceptable behaviour. Again, this aspect of design provided a marked contrast with the old-build where teacher spaces were separated from main corridors with smaller internal corridors and a number of linking corridors were evident around the school. This meant that teachers in the old-build had access to quiet and private spaces away from pupils in marked contrast to the experience of teachers in the new-build.

Safety and discipline: CCTV cameras in the new and old school

CCTV cameras were integrated into the original design of the new building and they were clearly visible in such a streamlined, modern building. Given the larger scale of the original old school (for example, height of ceilings, broad and expansive corridors), CCTV cameras appeared less noticeable and obvious in this setting. What emerged in interviews with teachers in the old-build was that a new generation of cameras had been installed some years earlier as a reactive response to a highly publicized gang fight in the local area. While the rationale for the installation of CCTV cameras obviously differed between school premises, teachers and pupils attitudes to their presence were remarkably similar. A key finding was that most teachers and pupils expressed positive and favourable opinions towards the presence of CCTV cameras both inside and outside of school premises. The largely uncritical acceptance of electronic forms of surveillance has also been found by other studies of student views (Tupper et al., 2008). A key finding was that the deployment of CCTV was positively assessed and associated with the protection of children and crucially keeping potentially dangerous intruders out of school premises:

Do I have any views about CCTV? I don’t have any negative views about it. I think in a school environment it’s a good thing just to keep … it doesn’t sort of bother me. I sort of see them occasionally and they will be buzzing round, and it will be like … in today’s day and age its probably a better idea, there is somebody monitoring like entrances and exits, playgrounds, in case somebody gets in, because somebody could easily get into the school. (Teacher 4, old-build)

The following pupil expressed similar concerns about intruders infiltrating their school:

If someone else was to come into the school, you know someone that isn’t part of the school, if they were to just sneak in then they would be caught on CCTV. (Pupil 1, new-build)

The disciplinary role of CCTV cameras was highlighted in teachers’ and pupils’ accounts of the benefits of the technology and understanding their function as a new tool of school discipline (Monahan et al., 2010). A teacher from the new-build explained his approval regarding their regulatory potential: ‘I am all in favour of them. I think they are a great discipline provided its … well there is no secret about them’ (teacher 5, new-build).

Another facet of the argument for their disciplinary efficacy was that they were an effective tool which could identify wrongdoers. CCTV cameras were assessed as particularly efficient when they were strategically located in established hotspots for trouble (for example, location of fire alarm). However, there was scepticism among a very small minority of pupils and staff regarding their accuracy. The caretaker in the new-build joked about the fact that because all pupils wore the same uniform it was exceedingly difficult to identify the guilty party, particularly if the pupils’ face was not visible on camera. One girl also referred to her friend who was mistakenly identified as the culprit on the basis of CCTV evidence. Despite this only a small minority of teachers and pupils questioned their suitability for school premises and expressed concerns about the invasion of privacy:

Yes it’s a good idea to try and catch out like fights or something. Other people might think its kind of invading your privacy, like kind of like a prison camp, like having cameras watching all the time. (Pupil 6, old-build)

It is also significant that some pupils indicated that they were unaware of the location of CCTV cameras around the school. Other pupils however indicated that they were initially surprised by their presence when they first attended secondary school but reported that they became less sensitized to their presence, taking them for granted as they adjusted to their new surroundings:

At first when I came to the school I thought: ‘Oh, there’s a camera there. Oh there’s another camera’. But now it’s just like you don’t even notice it. (Pupil 3, old-build)

This process of normalization, in addition to the uncritical acceptance of the deployment of CCTV cameras from the point of view of young people and teachers, certainly raises questions about the nature of contemporary citizenship. It also throws into sharp relief the extent to which school design may be implicated in encouraging active agency and independence in young people or indeed fostering passivity.

Discussion and conclusion

For many young people, attending school is their main on-going experience of entering into and engaging with others beyond family networks and friendship groups. Schools are key sites where children learn to interact with their peers, as well as authority figures and we know the quality of this process is crucial with regard to children integrating well into school communities (Beinart et al., 2002). This exploratory study was designed to investigate the ways in which the architecture of schools and layout might offer a context for the cultivation of autonomy and self-regulation in the social interactions of young people, or alternatively inhibit opportunities for self-governance. Its focus is especially relevant in Scotland where a major educational initiative in the Curriculum for Excellence (2004) positively endorses that schools contribute significantly to the development of proactive, responsible, engaged, citizens.

We found that the different layouts of the two schools studied, in particular the lack of space, as compared to an extensive campus and estate, created inequalities in opportunities for autonomy, self-determination and independent action among young people. These highly dissimilar social-spatial contexts were found either to intensify the need for surveillance of young people, or alternatively help lessen the need for close, in-person, adult supervision of pupils.

Paradoxically, if the ‘effective use of space’ is assessed purely on the basis of cost effectiveness on measures such as room occupancy, the old-build would certainly be assessed as a very inefficient school building. This site had grown organically over an extended period and in response to a variety of demands, some of which had been transient. As a consequence it contained a diverse range of spaces which offered pupils opportunities for self-directed and independent activity, away from the gaze of adults. Such opportunities for pupils were less evident on the smaller, compact new-build school site. Based solely on economic criteria the new-build however would be assessed as a cost-effective with a significantly lower carbon footprint. The implication of the lack of, and pressure on space in the new-build – as one teacher succinctly put it – was that young people were ‘like caged animals’.

In the new-build site there were very few: ‘nooks and crannies’ and areas which were not easily overseen by staff or other pupils. An exception to this was a small enclosed area at the end of corridors, under stair wells. Here pupils’ reported that young people could hide if they wanted privacy or in order to avoid a lesson. Quiet, semi-private spaces for contemplation or interaction in small groups, away from the bustle of the busy social space or corridors were also extremely limited. This meant that there were hardly any places where pupils could avoid observation by teachers or peers. Intense pressure on space and particularly the organization of the single, large, social space not only encouraged highly visible and ‘hands on’ management practices but qualitatively different social interactions between adults and young people. Far from promoting relaxed communal interactions, the social space was reported to be a tense and noisy place when fully occupied.

Within such an environment, the acceptance of continual electronic surveillance is perhaps understandable. Recently, it has been suggested that we are now entering new and uncharted territory with regard to the increasing deployment of surveillance technologies in British schools (Brown et al., 2008). In Scotland, biometric finger printing for school libraries and dining halls has been piloted in select schools (Bryce et al., 2010) and a related development has been the deployment of campus police officers in schools (Scottish Government, 2010; Stead et al., 2010). The largely uncritical acceptance of the deployment of CCTV cameras on the part of both young people and their teachers raises salient questions about the nature of contemporary citizenship. Today, young people are growing up with the ubiquitous presence of ‘big brother’ surveillance technologies in their everyday lives, the rationale for their presence often being a discourse of fear and risk rather than the actual experience or incidence of trouble. The UK, followed closely by countries such as Russia and Hungary, has more CCTV cameras than most other countries around the world (Privacy International, 2007). CCTV cameras are now commonplace in both public and private places such as shopping centres and significantly these are not accountable to democratic forms of governance in the same way as public institutions, such as schools. Warnick (2007: 324) argues – drawing on the work of political theorists – that being under constant surveillance in schools: ‘undermines human self-governance’. This is detrimental to social relations because providing the conditions where individuals can act independently and make their own decisions is an important way in which we demonstrate respect for them and promote trustful relationships.

So do the diversifying and proliferating modes of control and surveillance in schools simply reflect wider developments regarding the regulation and supervision of the present generation of children? We know, for example that children and young people’s everyday lives are more closely supervised and monitored than they were in the past (Madge et al., 2007; Pain, 2006) and modern childhood in materially advantaged societies remains one of the most regulated and monitored periods of the life course (Rose, 1999). And in what ways might the uncritical acceptance of surveillance impact on young people’s identity formation at a significant point in adolescence when young people are prone to experiment with risk behaviours such as substance and alcohol misuse (Furlong et al., 2007)? Young people’s ability to think critically and independently at vulnerable life stages is likely to be protective in this regard. The capacity for critical reflection is intimately related to what it means to be an engaged and responsible citizen in the Scottish context (Curriculum for Excellence 2004).

Finally, findings from this exploratory study highlight that informed debates need to take place about the extent to which being constantly monitored may disrupt trustful relationships in schools and adversely impact on young people’s potential for autonomous and independent action. The fact that we now have a new generation of school buildings in the UK, the design of which have been driven by ideas such as the efficient and multiple use of space, the characteristics of adult workplaces, or hypothetical ‘market places’ suggests that a focus on the ways in which school buildings may help shape young people’s identities and their capacity for active citizenship is a timely and important endeavour. The implications of new funding models is also worthy of scrutiny, especially the way in which they may promote the uptake of particular security measures adopted by new schools. All of these issues not only have significant implications for our conception of the purposes of schools and education in the context of 21st century but our future hopes for democratic renewal more generally.