Compulsory Schooling as a Form of Captivity: A Polemic

This paper examines whether compulsory schooling systems in the United States constitute institutional captivity by applying established psychological criteria to contemporary educational practices. The analysis evaluates schools against four captivity criteria: the constraint of preferred movements, segregation from natural environments, the institutional provision of survival needs, and taming through the reduced of privacy and behavioral control. The evidence demonstrates that modern schools systematically restrict student movement, segregate students from natural learning environments through artificial age-based groupings, create dependency through comprehensive institutional services, and employ behavioral control mechanisms. Contemporary schools use extensive surveillance (93% employ security cameras in 2020–2021), with approximately 1.4 million students suspended in 2020–2021. Students report widespread anxiety and describe their educational environment using prison-like metaphors. The systematic application of control mechanisms can produce “taught helplessness,” potentially undermining the autonomy, critical thinking, and democratic citizenship that education ostensibly seeks to cultivate.