The Prison Path: School Practices that Hurt Our Youth - Hardcover

The Prison Path: School Practices that Hurt Our Youth addresses ethical and moral issues associated with incarceration and schooling drawing an interesting and challenging parallel between both social processes. Issues related to loss of freedom, ethics in unequal power relationships, and the importance of learning for one's self image and potential for a full life are foundational to the text. This is an unusual book with overtones of "Deschooling Society" by Illich (1969) in the way it integrates ethics and learning. This book will be of great interest to readers challenged by modern society's approach to learning, rehabilitation, recidivism, institutional learning, and the moral life of the marginalized. Christen Clemson challenges preconceived images of prison and school life aims to have readers reflect and rethink their approaches to the morality of institutional life. -- Charles Burford, professor of educational leadership, Australian Catholic University Clemson's education, knowledge, and insight into the school to prison pipeline has been a passion of hers for over four years. Her chapter, "Space, Place, and the Power of a Box" is extremely timely in today's society. The correlations she has made between school and prison spaces are extremely powerful and gut wrenching. This book is an eye opening look forward. If we as educators do not begin looking closer at zero tolerance policies and how we are impacting children at such a young age and at an alarming rate we as educators and educational leaders may have a catastrophe in the making on our hands! Clemson has laid the groundwork for a movement toward better understanding and increased awareness. -- Jeannette L. Brelsford, PhD A succinct examination of the long standing history of American education in preparing children first for citizenship and secondly as prisoners when they question the authoritarianism of American schooling. With brilliant and insightful analysis as to the current direction of American education this book a must read for anyone involved in the process. -- Joy Meness

The Prison Path: School Practices that Hurt Our Youth takes a unique and unapologetic look into the practices, social norms, construction, and policies within our schools that mirror prisons. From the physical building to the labeling and placement of special education students, schools are reflecting correctional institutions. Beyond the mundane and into the world of social cliques, discipline policies, uniforms, and ethics, this book highlights how similarities between schools and prisons create a hidden and dangerous environment for at-risk students.