Conflicting demands in prison education and the need for context-specific, specialist training for prison educators: an account of the work of the Initial Teacher Training project for teachers and instructors in London prisons and offender learning

• Main Authors: Jeanes, Julia, McDonald, Jeremy, Simonot, Margaret
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Huddersfield Press 2009-01-01
• Series: Teaching in Lifelong Learning: A Journal to Inform and Improve Practice
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.5920/till.2009.1128

Prison Education is regulated by legislative and institutional requirements as are other kinds of Learning and Skill provision, but it is also fundamentally affected by the custodial requirements of the British Legal system. This, together with the relative isolation that teaching staff face within an organisational culture which is peculiar to each prison, produces a learning culture that is very different from that of general Further Education. This paper discusses initial findings of the LONCETT Prison Education Research Project (2008), which aims to identify the specific professional training needs of prison educators in London. Findings from five of the eight prisons in London highlighted two main pedagogic issues that emerged as key aspects of prison education practice which require both specialist training input and further research: the fragmentation which characterises the learner experience; and the emotional stress produced in this environment, which impacts both upon prisoner-learners and teaching staff.