Incarcerated Young People, Education and Social Justice

by Kitty te Riele, Tim Corcoran, Fiona MacDonald, Alison Baker, Julie White

Overview

This book foregrounds the provision of education for young people who have been remanded or sentenced into custody. Both international conventions and national legislation and guidelines in many countries point to the right of children and young people to access education while they are incarcerated. Moreover, education is often seen as an important protective and ‘rehabilitative’ factor. However, the conditions associated with incarceration generate particular challenges for enabling participation in education. Bridging the fields of education and youth justice, this book offers a social justice analysis through the lens of ‘participatory parity’, the book brings together rare interviews with staff and young people in youth justice settings in Australia, secondary data from these sites, a suite of pertinent and frank reports, and international scholarship. Drawing on this rich set of material, the book demonstrates not only the challenges but also the possibilities for education as a conduit for social justice in custodial youth justice. The book will be of immediate relevance to governments and youth justice staff for meaningfully meeting their obligation of enabling children and young people in custody to benefit from education; and of interest to scholars and researchers in education, youth work and criminology. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783031231292
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date:	03/31/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Kitty te Riele is Professor and Deputy Director (Research) in the Peter Underwood Centre at the University of Tasmania, on lutruwita (Tasmania) land, Australia. Her main research focus is educational policy and practice for marginalised young people, including in youth justice and in alternative education settings.

Tim Corcoran is Associate Professor in Inclusive Education at the School of Education, Deakin University, Australia. His main fields of research are inclusive education and educational psychology. This work challenges ableism in local, national, and international education policy and practice supporting psychosocial ways of knowing/being. 

Fiona MacDonald is Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities at Victoria University, Australia. Her research focus is on inclusive education and social justice and investigates how children and young people negotiate a sense of belonging and identity in their local, everyday lives. 

Alison Baker is Associate Professor in Youth and Community Studies in the College of Arts and Education at Victoria University, Australia, on the land of the Wurundjeri of the Kulin nation. Her research focuses on the how inequality impacts young people from marginalised backgrounds, specifically on social identities, sense of belonging and the development of voice and activism.

Julie White is Honorary Professor in the Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities, at Victoria University, Australia. Her major research interest is inclusive education, with a current focus on the education of young people in youth custody.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Education, youth justice and social justice.- Chapter 2: Setting the scene: Context and concerns.- Chapter 3: Distribution: The nature of education provided in youth custody.- Chapter 4: Distribution: Security versus education.- Chapter 5: Valuing difference.- Chapter 6: Voice and silence.-  Chapter 7: Possibilities for socially just education in youth custody.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This book provides fascinating insight into the significant and complex challenges of education provision for young people in custody. It is a timely contribution given the ongoing contention surrounding youth justice in Australia and globally that highlights how incarceration is further harming some of our most disadvantaged and vulnerable young people. Presenting interview data with students and staff at Parkville College in Victoria, the authors deploy a social justice analysis to consider how education in custody might be improved through adequate and contextualised resourcing, a greater appreciation of students’ diverse backgrounds, identities and learning needs and increasing opportunities for student voice. A powerful and important resource for those working in this sector, this book provides a sense of hope in drawing out how education within detention can work in protective and rehabilitative ways."

-Amanda Keddie, Deakin University, Australia

"Taking a rights-based approach, this book is an eye-opening, critical view of the intersection of youth incarceration and education. For those who make assumptions about education being a universal good, this book, which uses social justice as an analytical lens through participatory parity, provides for a ground-breaking and troubling look at youth incarceration in Australia."

-André de Quadros, Center for Antiracist Research Affiliate Faculty, Director, Prison Arts Project, Boston University, USA

"This book is a wake-up call to educational policy makers and practitioners to re-think the prevailing archaic ways of "educating" youth in custody. Drawing on Nancy Fraser's social justice participatory parity approach, and incorporating the voices of youth, the authors present new and refreshing answers for youth who have been marginalized, ghosted, and abandoned by current educational models." —Wanda Cassidy, Centre for Education, Law and Society, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, Canada