Paper short abstract:

Copying with school pressure parents in China use cameras to control their children studying. This paper invites discussion of socio - cultural consequences of this form of surveillance based on my fieldwork in Xiamen.

Paper long abstract:

As a person engaged in education in China I observe immense educational pressure students, parents and teachers face. One of many copying mechanisms parents employ is increased surveillance of their children.

In houses of middle class and middle upper-class Chinese, the use of cameras throughout the home has become commonplace. Although cameras surveilling children doing homework and studying were present prior to the outbreak of Covid, pandemic measures intensified the phenomena.

In my research I am looking at how the “panoptic eye” impacts social and cultural aspects of functioning and defining family. How does it change the relations and roles of parents and their studying children? How these cameras impact children’s understanding of themselves, family and society?

I am looking at these cameras as both a source and a consequence of Chinese society’s acceptance of CCTV surveillance as government’s tool of implementation of new regulations. Thus my objective is to examine the perceived efficiency of this “homework surveillance” by both parents and students and its impact on reaching the desired goals and how the goals are defined.

Finally I am looking at resistance strategies children use against the panoptic eye in their rooms. This overlaps with their understanding of privacy - which they experience way different than their parents.

I am conducting my fieldwork in Xiamen, PRC doing interviews with parents and students from local primary and middle schools. I am also tracing public discourse related to students’ surveillance from various social media platforms.