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A Realist Model Of Prison Education, Growth, And Desistance: A New Theory, Kirstine Szifris, Chris Fox, Andrew Bradbury
A Realist Model Of Prison Education, Growth, And Desistance: A New Theory, Kirstine Szifris, Chris Fox, Andrew Bradbury
Journal of Prison Education and Reentry (2014-2023)
This paper articulates the first ‘general theory’ of prison education, offering a new insight into the relevance of desistance theory and understanding of prison sociology to the lives of men engaged in education whilst in prison. Using a realist review method (Pawson, 2002b; Wong, 2013a) we develop a rough, initial general theory of prison education articulated in the form of three context-mechanism-outcome configurations (CMO). We then ‘test’ these CMOs by assessing the current evidence base through a systematic review of literature. This paper articulates three inter-related CMOs that we ground in prison sociology and desistance literature: ‘hook’, ‘safe space’ and …