Rethinking prison schools. A Student Voice experience

Abstract

The school in prison topic had been addressed following the Student Voice approach, which implies recognition and enhancement of student opinions and their influence on school policies. The research path started from an exploratory study, which took place inside the Bollate prison, involving over 200 inmates attended literacy courses, first and second level secondary schools and university courses. A first phase entailed the analysis of the conclusive document of the General States (2015) that identifies in the construction of an internal network of competences a key process to build a new model of education in prison. The same issues were then dealt with in depth interviews with students, selected on availability and paying attention to have a representative sample of the different age groups and the different penalty end. In the interviews the students reaffirm the methodological problems highlighted by the States General and emerges the requirement that the learning process is transformed into a shared path of research and knowledge construction and integrated with vocational training, through internships, traineeships and apprenticeships.