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Cited by 13Criminal Justice and Corrections AnalysisOnline and Blended LearningEducation during COVID-19 pandemic

A Prisoners' Island: Teaching Australian Incarcerated Students in the Digital Age

Open access
Hopkins, Susan, Farley, Helen·2014·Journal of Prison Education and Reentry
DOI 10.15845/jper.v1i1.631
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Abstract

While incarcerated students have always faced many obstacles to full and effective participation in university study, the global shift toward paperless e-learning environments has created new challenges for prisoners without direct internet access. Based on prison focus groups with Australian incarcerated students and direct participant observation while tutoring tertiary students within four Queensland correctional centres, this paper explores the obstacles and constraints faced by incarcerated students in light of the increasing digitisation of materials and methods in higher education. This paper also reviews the outcomes, limitations and challenges of recent Australian projects trialling new internet-independent technologies developed to improve access for incarcerated tertiary students. This paper argues that technology-centred approaches alone will not adequately address the challenges of access for incarcerated students unless such interventions are also informed by an understanding of the sociocultural nature of learning and teaching within correctional centres.

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Crossref · 10.15845/jper.v1i1.631

Cites

28 of 28 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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  • Inmates are not a homogeneous group, but the diversity of learning needs is not usually taken into account in most prisons.

    “Inmates are not a homogeneous group; however, the diversity of learning needs is not usually taken into account in most prisons (Czerniawski, 2016;Hopkins & Farley, 2014).”

    From Learning with digital technologies in prison: a scoping review (2023) · cites this paper as Hopkins & Farley, 2014

    In “Reality Checks: Hard Lessons for Incarcerated” (page unavailable), the paper recognises differences in students’ experiences and study preferences. “The Human Element: Making a Connection” (page unavailable) says Australian correctional education has tended to focus on basic skills rather than prisoners’ higher-education aspirations. These passages support concern about differing needs, but do not establish that most prisons fail to take that diversity into account. (LLM, conf=0.83)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Themes such as lifelong learning, educational offer, availability of digital technologies or internet access are relevant to inmates' future social reintegration.

    “Themes such as LL, educational offer, availability of DT or internet access become relevant to inmates' future social reintegration (Czerniawski, 2016;Hopkins & Farley, 2014;Mertanen & Brunila, 2018)”

    From Learning with digital technologies in prison: a scoping review (2023) · cites this paper as Hopkins & Farley, 2014

  • The prison setting usually discourages learning because of noisy spaces, lack of material and human resources, and poor organization for focused, autonomous and self-regulated learning.

    “The prison setting usually discourages learning, because of its noisy spaces, lack of material and human resources, as well as its poor organization for focused, autonomous and self-regulated learning (Farley & Hopkins, 2017;Hopkins & Farley, 2014;Hopkins, 2015;Moreira, et al., 2017b;Pike and Adams, 2012).”

    From Learning with digital technologies in prison: a scoping review (2023) · cites this paper as Hopkins & Farley, 2014

  • The socio-political perspectives on lifelong learning (instrumental versus humanistic) underlie the difference between education and training in prison.

    “The socio-political perspectives on LL (instrumental versus humanistic) underlie the difference between education and training in prison (Hopkins, 2015;Hopkins & Farley, 2014;Mertanen & Brunila, 2018;Torrijo & De Maeyer, 2019).”

    From Learning with digital technologies in prison: a scoping review (2023) · cites this paper as Hopkins & Farley, 2014

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Cites

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2 of the 30 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 3

  1. Hung, H. & Yuen, S. (2010). Educational use of social networking in higher education. Teaching in Higher Education, 15(6), 703-714.
  2. White, R. & Perrone, S. (1997). Crime and social con- trol. Victoria: Oxford University Press.
  3. Hopkins & Farley / Journal of Prison Education and Reentry 1(1), 42-51

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Related

Authors
Hopkins, S., & Farley, H.
Affiliations
University of Southern Queensland (AU)
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Prison Education and Reentry
Publisher
Universtity of Bergen Library
Published
2014-10-13
Volume
1
Issue
1
Pages
42
ISSN
2387-2306 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.15845/jper.v1i1.631
OpenAlex
W2058408947
Cited by
12
References
30
Citations by year
2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 1
FWCI
0.00
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • Journal of Prison Education and Reentry (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • University of Southern Queensland ePrints (University of Southern Queensland) (acceptedVersion)
  • VCU Scholars Compass (Virginia Commonwealth University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • University of Canterbury Research Repository (University of Canterbury) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
  • Social Sciences › Education › Online and Blended Learning
  • Social Sciences › Education › Education during COVID-19 pandemic
Keywords
incarcerated students, prison education, higher education access, online learning, internet access, prisons, sociocultural learning, Australian prisons

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