Surveillance in Hogwarts: Dumbledore's balancing act between managerialism and anarchism

Chan, A. Y. K. (2019) Surveillance in Hogwarts: Dumbledore's balancing act between managerialism and anarchism. Children’s Literature in Education, 50(4), pp. 417-430. (doi: 10.1007/s10583-017-9333-7)

Abstract

This article considers the fictional depiction of surveillance in Harry Potter, and compares the two different models of school leadership represented by Dolores Umbridge and Albus Dumbledore. The Harry Potter books put forward a vision of school leadership that affirms the necessity of surveillance. The optimal degree of surveillance means a fine balance between managerialism and anarchism. Neither a panoptic gaze of discipline and management which aims to control the minutest details of a person’s action, nor the absence of surveillance is desirable. Hogwarts is a surveillance school, and the difference between the two principals, both of whom insist on the maintenance of a hierarchical power structure, lies in the extent to which surveillance is in operation. Whereas Umbridge represents the failure of extreme managerialism which only results in fierce resistance, Dumbledore is portrayed as the desirable model of a temperate leader who, through reducing management and developing trust, succeeds in cultivating in students a version of discipline that is not based on external behaviour but on internal values.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Chan, Yu Kwan
• Authors: Chan, A. Y. K.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Education
• Journal Name: Children’s Literature in Education
• Publisher: Springer
• ISSN: 0045-6713
• ISSN (Online): 1573-1693
• Published Online: 25 September 2017
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2017 The Author
• First Published: First published in Children’s Literature in Education 50(4): 417-430
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License