Hyper surveillance as a dimension of school climate: An exploratory investigation.

Abstract

School climate has been of increasing concern in ensuring school safety and mitigating discipline disparities. Perceptions of school climate can differ across racial/ethnic groups. These differences in perceptions call for the exploration of other culturally relevant school climate dimensions. This study used exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to explore if hyper surveillance emerged as a unique component of school climate with a sample of 3,285 middle school students. Racial and gender differences across aspects of school climate were observed and are discussed within the context of understanding the importance of middle school students’ perceptions. Findings reveal that middle school students perceive hyper surveillance as a distinct component of school climate separate from fairness, suggesting that this form of school climate might be particularly relevant to the school experiences of students of color. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)