Jail Pedagogy: Liberatory Education Inside A California Juvenile Detention Facility

Abstract

Approximately 2 million juveniles are arrested each year. Half are sentenced to serve terms of incarceration. Although many scholars have written about teaching in detention facilities, few directly address how prisoners are being taught. This research explores the experiences, teaching philosophy, and practices of correctional educators. To learn what is taking place within these classrooms, I interviewed and observed instructors in 3 male juvenile detention facilities in California over the course of 15 months. Semistructured qualitative interviews looked in depth at their teaching techniques, finding that these teachers adopted a humanistic and liberatory approach to teaching behind the walls of juvenile detention facilities.