CONSEQUENCES OF IMPRESSION MANAGEMENTWHEN LOOKING GOOD ONLINE IS MORE ABOUT SADISM THAN TRUTH

Abstract

"This research paper addresses ethical considerations for surveillance in education and the educational policy frameworks that regulate human computer interactions of vulnerable and marginalized groups with emerging and disruptive technologies for both punitive and well-being measures. Over the span of two years, qualitative data was collected in the form of semi-structured interviews and participant background surveys and reflections on practice, provided staff perspectives and knowledge about vulnerable and marginalized populations, and technology policies related to known surveillance of staff during work hours in schools. In 1959, Goffman proposed that human beings attempt to control other’s impressions of them and that these impressions are often confined to spatially defined social establishments. As such, the concept of impression management and selective expression are the focus of this paper in an attempt to consider the how educational policy has evolved and areas of growth still needed or considered unattainable. School policies have grown to encompass the creation of safe spaces (and brave spaces) for LGBTQ2 individuals to be welcomed into the profession and community. Changes reflect gender neutral bathrooms, and the identification of pronouns on name tags, and social media where individuals are asked to identify which gender they relate to (she/hers, he/his, they/them, undeclared). However, the message of concealment is still apparent in other ways. The need to separate personal emails from work/school life correspondence is one way school districts have communicated the need to conceal identity, associations, personal interests, thoughts and emotions. Of a similar theme is the concept of responsibilization. This paper considers Karaian’s (2014) examination of responsibilization “through the lens of critical whiteness, queer, girlhood/young feminists and porn studies’ theorizations of the politics of sexual respectability and sexual subjectification” in an effort to revisit colonization present in schools, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (2011) “Respect Yourself” campaign and the role of surveillance for keeping students safe. Results from the study indicate that seven of the eight participants in the study did not consider a person in the role of a teacher or administrator to be part of the vulnerable or marginalized population. Of the administrators polled, surveillance of colleagues (i.e. teachers) was often reported to them through students and parent reports of behaviour and included requests to IT staff for monitoring of teachers on site during work hours. IT staff also understood that policing ‘sexting’ was both difficult to do and the responsibility of teachers in the classroom."