Revisiting the panopticon: educational narratives from incarcerated youth

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  • March 22, 2019
Creator
  • Anders, Allison Daniel
    • Affiliation: School of Education
Abstract
  • Correctional education programs in prison increase life and job skills, and reduce recidivism. Although these programs are cost-effective and generate positive effects post-release, in the last few decades, opposition to correctional education has increased. Beginning in the 1970s, critics of rehabilitation programs challenged correctional education, particularly the inclusion of postsecondary education in correctional education. Citing high recidivism rates, political conservatives attacked the idea of rehabilitation and curtailed education programs and funding. Incapacitation emerged as the dominant policy position, and emphasis on punishment rather than rehabilitation emerged for the first time in 100 years. In the midst of this calamity, an education program in North Carolina thrived. Although post-secondary education was rare in state prisons, in North Carolina, a small group of committed individuals established a successful program that provided post-secondary education to incarcerated youth. The N.C. Department of Corrections implemented the Workplace and Community Transition Youth Offender Program in 1999. The program included college coursework, a career counseling course, and a behavior management course. This dissertation research represents the educational narratives of participants in that program. Nine students from five different correctional facilities across the state participated in a series of in-depth interviews. Commitments to postcritical, and experimental ethnography, and feminist methodology guided the representations of these students' stories, and narrative analysis and narrative theory structured the interpretive work. Findings indicated that for these students, positive experiences with school often occurred for the first time in prison.
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  • In Copyright
Advisor
  • Noblit, George W.
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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  • Open access
Date uploaded
  • October 19, 2010

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