Prison Teaching and the Aims of Higher Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: Higher Education in Local and Global Contexts

Abstract

The existing arguments in favour of higher education in prisons often focus on its ability to further the rehabilitative aims of incarceration. This paper argues that we ought to support higher education in prison because it furthers the aims of education. I use resources from standpoint epistemology and the literature on the ‘ideal knower’ to show that offering education in prisons helps us achieve one of the main epistemic goals of education.

Author

• Fran Fairbairn, Colgate University