Journal of Higher Education in Prison

In Search of Uncertainty in Prison Higher Education

Our initial conversations about a volume dedicated to pedagogy in prison higher education were rooted in a desire for complexity and unfinishedness. Saturated with savior narratives and nods to transformation, we craved – and still do – references to the untidy and layered ways failure orchestrates the prison classroom. Up against reigning narratives of success and increased pressure to demonstrate return-on-investment, we urged authors to turn away from dogmatic ideas of education-as-rehabilitation and instead tune-into questions of uncertainty and impossibility (Ellsworth, 1996), and to share moments of ambiguity and stuckness (Lather, 1998). We wanted authors to share what happens in the aftermath of when things do not go according to plan and to learn what it is that educators and students do....