You Were Hired to Teach! Ideological Struggle,Education, and Teacher Burnout at the New Prison for Women

Authors

Randall L. Wright, California State UniversityFollow

Abstract

Critical theorists consider schools as sites of ideological struggle. The following is an account of Suzettes (pseudonym) attempts to define the educational practices in a women’s prison according to the democratic principles suggested in the Task Force Report on Federally Sentenced Women: Creating Choices, (Correctional Service of Canada, 1990). This report led to the construction of five new prisons for women across Canada. Suzettes case illustrates how ideological struggles are experienced personally, and how they contribute to her burnout disillusionment and resignation. Habermass critical research program and his concept of system and lifeworld undergirds this interpretation of this teachers resistance to the correctional ethos at the New Prison for Women (NPW).

Keywords

Agency and structure, System, Lifeworld, Voice, Ideology, Rationalization, Image, Teacher practical knowledge, Determinism, and Mediation

Publication Date

12-1-2004

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2004.1907

Recommended APA Citation

Wright, R. L. (2004). You Were Hired to Teach! Ideological Struggle,Education, and Teacher Burnout at the New Prison for Women. The Qualitative Report, 9(4), 630-651. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2004.1907