Abstract

Prison education stands at a critical juncture in England, caught between its recognised importance for rehabilitation and the realities of a system in crisis (Mahmood, 2025). Multiple reports emphasise both the vital role of prison education and its urgent need for reform (Coates, 2016; Ministry of Justice, 2021; Taylor, 2023). Research has documented prisoner-learner experiences, yet the voices of prison educators, those tasked with delivering education in these complex circumstances, have been systematically overlooked. This study addresses this critical gap by exploring the experiences of prison educators working in male institutions in England, considering how they navigate the emotional and relational complexities of teaching within prison environments.

The multiplicitous nature of this topic demands a multifaceted approach which moves beyond Cartesian ways of knowing and doing (Clough and Halley, 2007), where the body and mind are seen as separate and epistemology, ontology, and methodology as discreet. Therefore, the concepts of Deleuze and Guattari (1988), feminist (new) materialisms and postqualitative inquiry (St. Pierre, 2014) have been adopted to embrace the ‘ethico-onto-epistemology’ (Barad, 2007) of prison education spaces and teacher experiences. The research traverses several fields, including criminology, carceral geography, philosophy, art, and textiles, to explore the entanglement of my experiences with that of the participants working in prison education settings.

The concept of creativity is central to the research undertaking, as the inquiry is intertwined with arts-based practices to explore the phenomena differently. The prison educators participated in walking intra-views (after Barad’s intra-action, 2007); these were conducted in the prison space, acknowledging more-than-human agents. Participants then took part in a ‘visual matrix’ (Froggett, Manley and Roy, 2015) group-based method, which utilised images and sounds from the walking intra-views as stimuli. Participants shared ideas about their experiences, eliciting visceral responses and visual 'imaginaries' (images in our mind) arising from the method. The analysis of these and further one-to-one interviews incorporated stitch and weaving to diffract with the data.

The inquiry provides unique insights into prison educator experiences; this new understanding can influence education, training and praxis for teachers working in complex or traumatic spaces. By bridging theory and practice, this research contributes to the literature by offering alternative approaches to explore the experiences of complex educational settings.