Here's an abstract for Chelsea Catt's Graduate Research Forum talk titled "Exploring and Contemplating College in Prison," set to take place on Thursday, Nov. 7th, from 4.30p-5.30p in Education 42a.
Exploring and Contemplating College in Prison
Chelsea Catt
Abstract: Considerable research has shown that having education programs in prison helps reduce recidivism rates (Adams, Bennett, Burton, & Flanagan, 1994; Batiuk, 2005; Batiuk, Lahm, McKeever, Wilcox, & Wilcox, 2005; Batiuk, Moke, & Wilcox, 1997; Fine,et al., 2001; Jensen & Reed, 2006; Kim & Clark, 2013) by means of helping individuals develop skills that they can use to secure jobs upon reentry. While this is one way to easily measure the benefit of such programs to society as a whole and an effective method to politically justify offering educational programs to people who are incarcerated, recidivism rates do not capture the more heuristic aspects of carceral education, and research is lacking in this area. This presentation examines the life experiences of four focal students in a college in prison program. The qualitative study investigated how exploratory writing and contemplative pedagogy could complement the literate practices of students of the Education Justice Project and provides insight as to why people seek literacy for personal growth while incarcerated and the impacts of doing so for themselves.
Bio:
Chelsea Catt, Ph.D. Candidate in the department of Curriculum & Instruction, earned her M.A. from Eastern Illinois University where she concentrated on Composition Rhetoric. Prior to coming to the University of Illinois, she taught rhetoric courses at Lincoln Land Community College and Lake Land College and also coordinated writing center sessions for the Capital Scholars Honors Program at the University of Illinois-Springfield. She started teaching for a college in prison program while at UIUC, and she will present information regarding her qualitative study that she conducted with students of the Education Justice Project.
