NCJ Number
73193
Date Published
1980
Length
12 pages
Annotation
The experiences of two college instructors who taught a course in women's studies at the Indiana Women's Prison are related; difficulties and achieved objectives are emphasized.
Abstract
The students consisted of about 20 female inmates who had the requisite high school degree or equivalent and who were interested in taking college courses. Most were clearly more sophisticated and intelligent than the guards and general staff; their greatest problem was boredom. About 30 percent of the students were serving long sentences for murder. The team-teaching course on women's studies focused on positive images of women. Books about women with careers, finding love in middle age, surviving into old age, and unmarried women were selected. Class was conducted for 3 hours weekly, and discussion was emphasized. The first discovery made by the instructors was how little relief could be offered from the negative impact of the institutional setting. Petty harassment, a negative parole board decision, and conflict among the women throughout the week affected all the women and their participation in class. The atmosphere could never be predicted, and it was impossible to build upon successes from previous meetings. The most serious difficulty was that the theme of the course was profoundly antithetical to prison life in that women did not work together, did not support each other, and could not be trusted in prisons. Students had a far greater need for literature emphasizing self-worth and self-preservation. Their essays, journals, and class discussions were pervaded with bitter comments about the untrustworthiness of friendship. A playacting group would provide a better vehicle for feminist awareness study than a literature course. Nevertheless, the course was exciting for students and teachers, and it provided a valuable period of discussion and comradery apart from the petty hassles of daily prison life.