Post on 20-Dec-2015
Teaching College Inside Prison Walls: Stories from Community College Educators
Susanna B. SpauldingColorado Mountain College
Clifford P. Harbour, James Banning, and Timothy Gray DaviesColorado State University
Phenomenon of Interest
How community college educators who teach college in prison make meaning of their experiences
Conceptual Framework
Tension between two contrasting conceptualizations of education: education as a means of social control (Bourdieu, 1967) and education as the practice of freedom (Freire, 1970/2003)
Education
As a means of social control when the power of the state, especially as exercised through the school system, molds the beliefs and values of its subjects
Education
As the practice of freedom so that the dialogue between the teacher and the student generates opportunities for critical thinking and problem solving
Prison as a Discursive Environment
The prison’s hierarchical power structure that focuses on social control contrasts with the democratic classroom that community college educators attempt to create.
Research Questions
How do educators who teach college in prison understand their work as teachers of higher learning skills?
How do these experiences illuminate the influence of the educators’ character and motivation and mediate the prison environment in the teaching and learning process?
Research Method
Narrative inquiry based on data in the form of in-depth stories collected from four participants through unstructured interviews
Transcription as Analysis
Analysis began by isolating large segments of transcribed data that appeared to be “narratives” from other forms of discourse, such as arguments and questions and answer exchanges
Three Narrative Structures
Core narratives that illustrated temporal ordering of the action
Poetic structures that were organized topically
Vignettes that represented and encapsulated important messages
Emergent Themes
Working in borderlands
The participants’ narratives of teaching in the controlled environment of the prison reflected feelings of isolation, dislocation, and dissonance.
Emergent Themes
Negotiating power relations
The participants adjusted to the restrictions of the prison environment and created a hybrid pedagogy to meet the educational needs of their inmate students
Emergent Themes
Making Personal transformations
The experience of teaching in prison provided the participants with new understandings that led them to make changes in their personal value systems
Interpretation Through a One Act Play
Scene One: Going Inside
Scene Two: Learning the Rules
Scene Three: Finding Rewards
Recommendations
For researchers
Discursive environments, such as prisons, offer distinct settings in which to interpret and present everyday life (Gubrium & Holstein, 2003).
Recommendations
For Policy Makers
“Prisoners may … be the only group of U.S. citizens systematically barred from public support for access to higher education” (Torre & Fine, 2005)
Recommendations
For Community College Practitioners
Prison education fits well with community colleges’ commitment to providing low cost access to higher education.