CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 55Art Therapy and Mental HealthCriminal Justice and Corrections AnalysisLiteracy and Educational Practices

'Reading for Life': Prison Reading Groups in Practice and Theory

Billington, Josie·2011·Critical Survey
DOI 10.3167/cs.2011.230306
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

This article considers the theoretical and practice-based evidence for the therapeutic effects of the shared reading of literature (poetry, fiction, plays, short stories) in prison communities. Taking as its starting point recent research and practice relating to the successful intervention ('Get into Reading') pioneered by UK charity The Reader Organisation, the article situates the components of this model in the context of established theories of reader response, as well as new research on reading and the brain. Yet its focus is always shared reading in practice and, through specific examples and testimony from prisoners and those who read with them (including health professionals), the article demonstrates the vital relation of this intervention to current recommendations in respect of the mental health needs of prisoners. It also offers a possible model for future interdisciplinary research in this field.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3167/cs.2011.230306

Cites

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Group-based studies record positive impact of reading literature on measures of cognitive performance (concentration, memory, social skills, creativity) and affective change (increased confidence, fewer feelings of isolation, improvement on markers of depression).

    “For example, group-based studies record positive impact on measures of cognitive performance like concentration, memory, social skills, and creativity, as well as affective change in the direction of increased confidence, fewer feelings of isolation, and improvement on markers of depression [6, 18–20].”

    From Five studies evaluating the impact on mental health and mood of recalling, reading, and discussing fiction (2022) · cites this paper as [19]

Cites

Still being checked.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Billington, J.
Affiliations
University of Liverpool (GB)
Corresponding author
Billington, Josie
ORCID
Billington, Josie
Venue
Critical Survey
Publisher
Berghahn Books
Published
2011-01-01
Volume
23
Issue
3
ISSN
  • 0011-1570 (ISSN-L)
  • 1752-2293
DOI
10.3167/cs.2011.230306
OpenAlex
W2317775386
Cited by
54
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 1
FWCI
19.03
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
Critical Survey (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Conservation › Art Therapy and Mental Health
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
  • Social Sciences › Education › Literacy and Educational Practices
Keywords
shared reading, reader-response criticism, prison mental health, interdisciplinary research

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review