Technology and Discipline: Examining the Use of Apps for Classroom Behavior Management

In thousands of classrooms throughout the United States and internationally, behavior management apps have become an integral part of schools’ discipline machineries. Such apps are designed to help teachers enforce rules, especially when it comes to rewards and punishments within school token economies. To understand how these apps are beginning to shape and reshape schooling, research is needed that sheds light on the values and beliefs underpinning their use. The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze three schools’ discipline practices involving behavior management apps. Our two research questions focused on the paradigms underpinning schools' discipline models and on the influence of these paradigms on schools’ app uses. Our investigation is informed by the scholarship on classroom management, as well as key concepts from Foucault’s (1977) Discipline and Punish. This qualitative, comparative case study drew on data gathered at three urban schools. In total, 34 interviews were conducted with campus administrators and teachers. Within-case portraits described paradigms and practices at each school, and cross-case analyses addressed patterns across the schools. Schools’ behavior app uses were underpinned by differing school discipline paradigms. Although all three schools saw behavior apps as fostering orderly classroom environments, schools’ practices were underpinned by differing sets of values and beliefs (e.g., accountability/social control; neoliberalism; positivity and fun). In this way, the look and feel of app practices, and, ultimately, schools’ overarching discipline systems, also varied. This study examines a widespread, yet understudied, educational technology. By problematizing the values and beliefs underpinning teachers’ behavior app practices, the present study invites scholars and practitioners to question how rewards, punishments, and relationships manifest in schools. In doing so, it highlights opportunities to join with students, parents, and other stakeholders in broader conversations about schooling and discipline.