NCJ Number
175601
Date Published
1997
Length
271 pages
Annotation
In conducting research on prison education in a male correctional facility, the author treated inmate life stories and histories as a significant part of schooling practices in particular and education in general.
Abstract
By studying prisons as significant school sites, the author attempted to understand the importance of linking experience and education and of treating incarcerated individuals as human beings. The emphasis was on incarceration as education, jails as schools, inmates as curriculum makers, and the self as autobiographer. The author considered such topics as drug awareness, drug abuse, and addiction as crucial to social reform, along with literacy problems, interpersonal abuse, and other criminal offenses. He used stories of inmates as a way of rediscovering the meaning of education. One of the most noteworthy findings was that inmates, as prison participants and partners in curriculum making, embodied the message that the heart was the source of empowering education relationships. Inmate stories taught the author about caring, connecting, and creating, even in the most dangerous institutions. He assessed the wider storytelling landscape in the correctional field within the context of education and focused on case study accounts of inmate inquiry processes. Group discussions, individual literacy sessions, letter writing exchanges, and creative writing demonstrated how powerful inmate stories were in narrative conceptions of knowledge and experience. Appendixes contain additional information on the experiences of the author in conducting his research. 169 references, 4 tables, and 1 figure