Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Enabled by Schools, Students Are Under Constant Surveillance by Marketers

  • 05/17/16

Boulder, Colo. — Schools now routinely direct children online to do their schoolwork, thereby exposing them to tracking of their online behavior and subsequent targeted marketing. This is part of the evolution of how marketing companies are using digital marketing, according to a new policy analysis.

In the National Education Policy Center’s 18th Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends, Learning to be Watched: Surveillance Culture at School, Faith Boninger and Alex Molnar describe how schools facilitate the work of digital marketers. Google, for example, subscribes over 30 million students and educators to its Google Apps for Education (GAFE) and tracks students when they shift to Google applications not explicitly part of the GAFE suite (e.g., YouTube). Facebook tracks whenever its users browse to any page housing a “like” button, and uses that tracking information in its ad targeting systems.

The policies that enable and encourage these practices connect today’s children and adolescents to monitoring and to marketers. Moreover, because digital technologies enable extensive personalization, they amplify opportunities for marketers to control what children see in the private world of their digital devices as well as what they see in public spaces such as streets, ball fields, and schools.

Schools’ embrace of digital technology augments and amplifies traditional types of education-related marketing, which include: (1) appropriation of space on school property, (2) exclusive agreements, (3) sponsored programs and activities, (4) incentive programs, (5) sponsorship of supplementary educational materials, and (6) branded fundraising.

These practices, Boninger and Molnar explain, threaten children’s right to privacy as well as their physical and psychological well-being and the integrity of the education they receive. Constant digital surveillance and marketing at school combine to normalize for children the unquestioned role that corporations play in their education and in their lives more generally.

The report offers a number of recommendations, including that policymakers enact enforceable legislation rather than rely on industry self-regulation to protect student privacy, and that they eliminate the perverse incentives that encourage parents, teachers, and administrators to sacrifice student privacy in order to be financially able to provide educationally necessary school activities.

Find Learning to be Watched: Surveillance Culture at School, by Faith Boninger and Alex Molnar, on the web at:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/schoolhouse-commercialism-2015

Featured

  • Virginia Tech Tops Out New College of Engineering Building

    Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., recently celebrated the topping out of Mitchell Hall, which will soon stand as the largest College of Engineering building on campus, according to a news release. The university partnered with Skanska on the 285,500-square-foot facility, which has an expected completion date of winter 2028.

  • St. Lucie County, Fla., Breaks Ground on New K–8 School

    St. Lucie Public Schools in St. Lucie County, Fla., recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new K–8 school, according to a news release. The district partnered with Spiezle Architectural Group, Inc., for the design of the upcoming Ft. Pierce K–8 School, which comprises six buildings covering 215,000 square feet.

  • Wyoming District Breaks Ground on New Elementary School

    Laramie County School District #1 in Cheyenne, Wy., recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for the upcoming Mountain View Elementary School, according to a news release. The facility has an estimated completion date of summer 2028, and it will have the capacity for 650 students in fifth and sixth grade.

  • URI Cuts Underwater Ribbon on New Ocean Robotics Laboratory

    The University of Rhode Island recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new Ocean Robotics Laboratory at its Narragansett Bay Campus, according to a news release. Two students used a remotely operated vehicle to cut an underwater ribbon in a 30-by-20-foot test tank.