Abstract:

Background. Printed and/or visual media coverage (Altun, Güneri Baker, 2006) and a large body of research results (Alikaşifoğlu et. al., 2004; Çınkır Kepenekçi, 2003; Demirtaş, 2007; Dönmez Güven, 2002; Durmuş Gürkan, 2005; Geyin, 2007; Güven Dönmez, 2002; Kapçı, 2004; Kepenekçi Çınkır, 2006; Öğülmüş, 1995; Özer, 2006; Tor Sargın; 2005; Türkmen, 2004) show that students and teaching staff in Turkey experience some physical and psychological safety concerns which they perceive as threatening. Such events as violence, harassment, extortion, vandalism, alcohol and drug abuse, substance addiction and theft, causing serious risks for students (Verdugo Schneider, 1999). In many countries, various preventive measures including night-vision cameras in parking lots, random locker searches, armed police guards in the school yards, metal detectors at school entrances, surveillance cameras in halls, transparent backpacks, bomb-sniffing dogs, and computerized student ID cards etc. (Dinkels, Cataldi, Kena Baum, 2006; Fredrik, 2004; Garcia, 2003; Garza, 2002; Green, 1999; Lewis, 2003; Miller, 2003; Nanjiani, 2000; Schneider, 2001; 2002) are taken to promote school safety. A review of these measures enables us to assert that there are two widely-accepted approaches to solve school safety problems and to establish a peaceable school environment where all stakeholders fell safe: (1) school climate-culture model and (2) police model (Dönmez Güven, 2001, Dönmez Özer, 2009). School climate-culture approach ignores police model-oriented measures, and rather deals with students' personal traits, students' individual problems, and characteristics of school climate and culture (Dönmez, 2001, 66–67). On the other hand, police model can be regarded as an approach that focuses on getting information about events in a short span of time and intervening in these events immediately by using advanced technological resources (Dönmez Güven, 2001). To this approach, enhancing the monitoring activities, using hard codes of conduct and/or hard discipline and punishment procedures, and presence of school safety personnel in schools will lead a decrease in the number of violence events experienced (Garcia, 1994). Purpose. Despite some debates about cost, convenience, efficiency, and possible ethical problems of the surveillance cameras (Warnick, 2007), media coverage shows that more and more of them are being used in schools. In this respect, the purpose of this research is to determine the school administrators' and teachers' views on surveillance camera systems in terms of their contribution to school safety and discipline. It has been also intended to determine whether participating administrators' and teachers' views differ significantly in terms of some variables including gender, school type, duty type, the time surveillance camera has been used and school size. Method. The population of the study was consisting of a total number of 100 school administrators and 1.847 teachers working in primary (n=14; 18,9 % of primary schools) and secondary (n=16; 48.48 % of secondary schools) schools where surveillance cameras were used. Since researchers were able to have access to the whole population, all administrators and teachers who work in the schools with surveillance cameras were included into the study instead of having a sample. In order to measure administrators' and teachers' views a self-administered scale entitled Surveillance Camera Systems School Safety scale, developed by Dönmez and Özer (2008) was administered on the teachers working in primary and high schools equipped with surveillance cameras within Malatya city centre. The data were collected from 523 administrators (n=84) and teachers (n=439). Descriptive statistics were computed and differences in teachers' and administrators' views on surveillance cameras by gender, school type, and duty type variables were tested by using t-test. For the usage duration of surveillance cameras and school size variables One-Way ANOVA analysis with LSD post hoc test was used. Results and conclusions. Results about the location of the cameras revealed that they are mostly used in corridors (97%), school yards (97%), and entrance-exit doors (97%), and cafeterias (47%). In terms of the time surveillance cameras have been used, results showed that 53% of the schools have been using the system for a year, 23 % have been using for two years, and 24 % of them have been using the surveillance cameras for three years, which seems to agree with the idea that these systems are becoming more and more common. Results also showed that there is a statistically significant difference between administrators' and teachers' views. Accordingly, compared to the teachers, school administrators were more likely to believe that camera systems contribute to the school safety and discipline. Considering the school type, the high school administrators and teachers rated the surveillance system higher than the elementary school administrators and teachers did. However, no significant difference was found by gender, the time surveillance camera has been used and school size variables.

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