"There’s More That Binds Us Together Than Separates Us": Exploring the Role of Prison-University Partnerships in Promoting Democratic Dialogue, Transformative Learning Opportunities and Social Citizenship

Authors

Anne B. O'Grady Dr, Nottingham Trent UniversityFollow
Paul Hamilton Dr., Nottingham Trent UniversityFollow

Keywords

Prison-University partnerships, social citizenship, transformative learning, pedagogic participatory dialogue.

Abstract

In this paper we argue that education – particularly higher education (HE) - has the potential to offer socially, economically and culturally transformative learning opportunities–cornerstones of social citizenship. Yet, for prisoners, the opportunity to engage in HE as active citizens is often limited. Using a Freirean model of democratic, pedagogic participatory dialogue, we designed a distinctive prison-University partnership in which prison-based learners and undergraduate students studied together. The parallel small-scale ethnographic study, reported here, explored how stereotypes and ‘Othering’ - which compromise social citizenship - could be challenged through dialogue and debate. Evidence from this study revealed a positive change in ‘de-othering’ attitudes of participants was achieved. Furthermore, participants reported growth in their sense of empowerment, agency, and autonomy–cornerstones of social citizenship. Findings from this study contribute further evidence to the developing body of knowledge on the value of partnerships and dialogue in prison education. We conclude that policy makers, and respective institutions, need to work harder to establish prison-University partnerships, thus providing the space for "real talk" to take place.

Author Bio

Dr Anne O’Grady

Dr O'Grady is passionate about adult education and lifelong learning. Her research has a particular focus on adult learners who experience marginalisation from educational opportunities, within a framework of social justice, exploring social inclusion and exclusion dichotomies.

Dr Paul Hamilton

Dr Hamilton’s research is underpinned by an interest in – and commitment to - the intersection between social and criminal justice. His research has included projects on disability hate crime, prison-community transitions, probation mentoring and the impact of educational interventions in reducing knife crime.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.25771/307x-2d27

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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