Impacting life expectancies of incarcerated people through dialogic scientific gatherings and dialogic scientific workshops in prisons

Abstract

The scientific literature has presented evidence that participants in dialogic scientific gatherings (DSGs) transform their scientific interest in science. DSGs are based on a dialogical perspective, where egalitarian dialogue and the co-creation of knowledge are the two corner pieces that allow the development of new meanings for participants, improving their scientific literacy. There is a clear gap in scientific studies regarding DSGs in prison. This is the first research to address the impact of DSG and dialogic scientific workshops in prisons. The study presents the positive impact of the DSGs and scientific activities in promoting scientific interest in incarcerated people. A communicative case study was conducted in a Catalonian (Spain) prison between February and April 2022. Nineteen males who were incarcerated aged between 29 and 44 participated in twenty-one DSGs and twelve scientific workshops following a communicative approach. Data were collected through fifteen communicative observations during the application of the DSG and eight interviews with incarcerated people and two interviews with prison workers involved in implementing the DSG. The activities conducted and analysed in this study demonstrate that bringing science closer to all people, including the traditionally excluded population, is possible. The results show that the persons who experience incarceration’s motivation to participate in these scientific activities, which fostered their awareness of and interest in science, gave meaning to their learning and transformed their interactions in and out of prison.