Incarcerated College Educators: Radicalizing Higher Education Pedagogy

• In Event: Prison Education

Abstract

Using an autoethnographic methodology, this essay will critically examine an educational first within the history of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP): the use of incarcerated educators to teach a post-secondary course to traditional non-incarcerated college students. During the Spring 2016 academic term at UPB, two incarcerated educators at Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) McKean, taught an advanced upper-level undergraduate course, Special Topics in Courts: The United States of America v. The United States of America. The essay will highlight the unique challenges of the course design and delivery, as well as the limitless and radical pedagogical contributions incarcerated educators can provide higher education.

Author

• Tony Gaskew, University of Pittsburgh at Bradford