Debates in digital pedagogy within prisons

Abstract

This paper provides a critical view of the digital education within the global prison estate, with a specific aim of examining the extent to which we can expect the prison system of England and Wales to embrace digital pedagogy. By presenting critical sociological theories around social hierarchies and the transitions between them that education can provide (Freire, 1972; Gramsci, 1994; Kant, 1992), the paper will be able to show how while there is a desire and appetite for increasing the digital education of those who are at the lower end of the social economic divide; without buy in from the cultural hegemonic state (Gramsci. 1994), then there is no desire to aid prisoners to be able to access the global digital community. While the paper will paint a bleak picture of the digital education of prisoners, it will provide a latitudinal overview of successful programmes that are being run within the global prison estate. This in turn will show that while there is hope for a digitally accessible prison in which to aid education, it will be done so through capitalistic ideals rather than pedagogical ones.