Women’s Prisons as Learning Spaces

Abstract

Based on a study carried out in 2008 in the women’s prison in João Pessoa (State of Paraiba, Brazil) whose objective was to comprehend the relation between the lifelong learning processes of imprisoned women and the motivations/ life circumstances which led them to commit crimes, the text seeks to analyse the content of the narratives of these women adopting as specific focus of its analysis the categories family, work, school and prison. By emphasizing thelast, prison, it is intended to give visibility to the prison context as the locus of multiple contradictions and as a space in which learning biographies –whether directed at emancipation or not – are constructed.