NCJ Number
219522
Journal
Journal of Correctional Education Volume: 58 Issue: 2 Dated: June 2007 Pages: 185-203
Date Published
June 2007
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This article explores literacy-related activities and practices of prisons and analyzes the impact of various “educentric” ideologies on current educational provisions to inmates.
Abstract
The term “educentric” is used to describe the way in which “certain groups or individuals position education within the parameters of their own personal and professional experiences which then go on to influence the opinions, perceptions, and understands of the education of others.” A lack of education and/or literacy skills have been used globally to keep certain groups of people in power and certain groups of people in the margins of society. The author argues that policy makers take on an educentric view when deciding upon educational opportunities for inmates. From this perspective, policy makers consistently focus on non-ability, non-attendance, and nonompliance rather than on the many educational benefits achieved by some inmates. Practitioners, it is claimed, are caught in the middle between the policy makers and the people impacted by the policies, namely the prisoners. While practitioners appear to generally take a pragmatic stance and work around both sets of demands, the author argues that practitioners have their own set of educentric views that can be used to manipulate or control students. Prisoners also have their own educentric views that they carried in with them from their life outside of prison and to which they hang onto with great fervor to avoid being “prisonized.” In the end, prisoner’s views on education may be that the classroom “takes them away from the cockroaches.” References