Social anxiety, sex, surveillance, and the ‘safe’ teacher

Abstract

Foucault's view of the body as a detailed text from which can be read a system of power is used to consider some aspects of contemporary teacher work. In particular, this paper considers the impact on primary school teachers of social anxiety about touching children. One effect has been an intensification of self‐surveillance by teachers, and increased experience of child‐touch and child‐proximity as ‘uncomfortable’. Paradoxically, teachers' need for visibility so they can be seen as innocent has the effect of constituting teachers as always and already guilty—as potential sexual abusers. This guilt is now enacted in the everyday common sense actions of ‘safe’ teachers. The argument is developed with reference to teacher union policy texts and interview data from teachers in a range of New Zealand primary schools.