Stories of Surveillance and Resistance: Young People with Dwarfism and Teaching Assistants in Secondary Schools in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Abstract Teaching Assistants (ta s) are described as key figures in the inclusion of disabled young people in mainstream schools. However, disabled young people’s insights into ta s’ support remain limited. This paper contributes to such insights by exploring the experiences of young people with dwarfism in secondary education with their ta s in the United Kingdom, drawing on their qualitative, first-hand accounts. I engage in a Foucauldian analysis of ta s’ support, where I argue that, under the guise of support, disabled young people sustain ta s’ panoptic surveillance, aiming at their normalisation. Nevertheless, the stories reveal modes of surveillance that go beyond panopticism, such as panauralism. Moreover, the stories demonstrate how young people resist to their surveillance by re-turning the gaze to their ta s, exercising the synoptic gaze. The paper concludes by considering the contributions of those stories, including the need to consider surveillance in relational terms, its multi-sensory nature, and its constitutive power.