Punching the clock: a Foucauldian analysis of teacher time clock use

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article features a Foucauldian analysis of interview data from a qualitative study of four North Carolina public school teachers who are required to clock in and out of school each day via a virtual time clock. In this article, Michel Foucault’s theories of discourse, discipline, power, and surveillance are brought into dialogue with teachers’ interview responses, and three associated analytic questions drive this article’s analytical exploration: 1.) What discourses are made visible by teachers’ time clock use? 2.) How does time clock use produce forms of subjectivity? 3.) What are these subjectivities? The resulting analysis suggests that the practice of teacher time clock use sustains problematic discourses, produces troubling subject positions, and contributes to the deprofessionalization and subjugation of public school teachers.