The context for this study is set within a brief historical account of the development of prison education up to and including present day policies. The current policy background encompasses the Offender Learning Journey, Offender Learning and Skills Service and the government's Green Papers Reducing Re-Offending through Skills and Employment (2005) and Next Steps (2006). Furthermore, the literature review considers education and employment discourse in relation to social exclusion and participation in learning. The research design is predominately qualitative within a single case study framework, utilising a mixed methods approach. It investigates perceptions of staff and offenders to the development and implementation of a curriculum intervention involving an integrated full-time programme of production, training and e-Iearning delivered in a prison establishment. The rising prison population resulted in an expansion programme which saw a new residential unit, workshop and learning and skills activity centre built to accommodate an extra 180 adult male offenders in the case study establishment. This provided the opportunity, as an insider researcher, to explore specifically the development and implementation of a curriculum intervention integrating technology into one of the new workshop facilities. The three partners namely, the Prison Service, OLASS and Learndirect college providers collaborated together on the integrated programme. Hence, research has been conducted at a practical level describing obstacles and outcomes of a local initiative adopting a partnership approach to the said curriculum intervention and the responses of a purposive sample of 5 staff and 6 offenders to it. Data was analysed using a grounded theory approach and research conclusions suggest that barriers/obstacles are not unique to the case study establishment particularly when integrating technology into the curriculum. Furthermore, some negative staff attitudes emerged but this did not undermine the project. The study indicates effective tripartite working which was instrumental to the success of the intervention which motivated and engaged offenders to succeed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:521835 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Long, Janet |
| Publisher | University of Sheffield |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/14689/ |
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