Teaching in Prison

In Canada correctional education in federal penitentiaries was privatized in 1987. Since then educators enter the prison settings and work by prison rules to fulfill the mandate of the Correctional Service of Canada's education policy as contracted correctional educators (CCEs). The corporate and institutionally assumed explanation for the CCEs'retention is prisonization. This study explores the professional reality of the CCEs of the Prairie region (Alberta Saskatchewan Manitoba)during the period of September 1994 and 2000 and challenges the various theses concerning resocialization andbecause of the impossibility of prisonization looks at the dialogical strategies (dezoning and disowning)for personal resistance and identity mutation. Thethesis concludes with recommendations for enhancingthe potential for abolitionism through dialogicalreflexivity and encourages CCEs to actively organizeto reverse the marginalization created bybureaucratic domination and corporate privatizationand to work to counteract workplace violence andadvocating for state and social rectification of thefailures of correctional education.