research project conducted in a remand prison in Belgium (n = 486). The results demonstrate that 29% of the prisoners take part in educational courses and that.
International Review of Education https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-018-9727-9
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Barriers to prisoner participation in educational courses: Insights from a remand prison in Belgium Dorien Brosens1
•
Flore Croux1,2 • Liesbeth De Donder1
! Springer Nature B.V. and UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning 2018
Abstract This article examines the profile of prisoners who do not take part in formal education while being incarcerated (e.g. language or ICT courses) and the barriers to participation these prisoners experience. Survey data were collected as part of a research project conducted in a remand prison in Belgium (n = 486). The results demonstrate that 29% of the prisoners take part in educational courses and that participation rates are lower among Belgian and non-European prisoners, those with either a very good or very poor understanding of the Dutch language, and those serving a short sentence. Non-participants experience mainly situational barriers (e.g. having recently arrived in prison), but they also express having preferences for other activities (e.g. working), and being confronted with informational (e.g. not being aware of the possibilities for participation), institutional (e.g. receiving no response to a request to enrol in a course) or dispositional barriers (e.g. not feeling like taking classes). Furthermore, this study investigates which individual, social network and prison-related characteristics are associated with the various categories of barriers. The article concludes with a discussion of the limitations of the study and recommendations for future research. Keywords Prisoners ! barriers ! formal education ! participation Re´sume´ Obstacles a` la participation des de´tenus aux programmes d’e´ducation et de formation : observations d’un e´tablissement pe´nitentiaire en Belgique – Cet article examine le profil des de´tenus qui ne participent pas a` un enseignement formel durant leur incarce´ration (par exemple cours de langues ou d’informatique), ainsi que les obstacles a` la participation que rencontrent ces de´tenus. Des donne´es d’enqueˆte ont e´te´ collecte´es dans le cadre d’un projet de recherche mene´ dans un e´tablissement pe´nitentiaire de Belgique (n = 486). Les re´sultats de´montrent que 29 pour cent des de´tenus participent aux cours, et que les taux de participation sont infe´rieurs parmi les de´tenus belges et non-europe´ens, ceux ayant une compre´hension Extended author information available on the last page of the article
