Youth and Adult Education in The Prison Context: Challenges, Limits, and Possibilities of a Brazilian Elementary School

Abstract

This article aims to present youth and adult education in the prison context, evaluating its effectiveness in resocialization from the observation of the pedagogical-administrative management of an elementary education school located in a medium-security prison in the city of João Pessoa, state of Paraiba. The justification for this study is the belief that education opens the doors of knowledge, in which bridges are built for the critical development of human beings. The following question guided this research: What are the main challenges, limits, and possibilities of the administrative-pedagogical management of a school in a prison context for Youth and Adult Education deprived of freedom? This qualitative study relied on a five-question questionnaire addressed to its director. School in prison should be a place of freedom of thought and a place where the inmate would feel safe. The education role in the prison system is to rebuild the identity lost by the person deprived of freedom and to rescue their citizenship, thus making the prison environment less painful and a rightful place for those who are convicted.