Does school prepare men for prison?

The potential link between educational 'failure' and offending is perennially debated. Research and popular discourses tend to focus on the 'disadvantaged' family backgrounds from which the children who fail come. This paper summarises a piece of research that takes a different view. It is grounded in the critical sociology of education that exposes the inherently unequal nature of education systems, the role of education in maintaining and legitimising persistent social inequalities, and the exercise of disciplinary power through the linked institutions of school and prison. It aims to utilise these theoretical frameworks to reignite an interest in the fundamental problems of schooling. It achieves this through the specific focus on the marginalised 'naughty kids' who often become the prison population of the future. The researcher worked as a teacher in adult male prisons in the UK, and data collected during 200+ brief induction interviews suggested that the experience of schooling was more significant to prisoners than the educational outcomes, or lack thereof. Observations of the apparent ease with which the majority of men coped with their lives in prison led to questions about the possibility of a direct correspondence between prisoners' schooling and their later lives in prison. This was investigated in more detail by conducting in-depth life history interviews with 11 former inmates for a Doctoral thesis. The findings of the research show that school, by its very nature, is not always a benevolent place. Those excluded from or marginalised in education (and later in society) can become the collateral damage of a system that is not merely concerned with the benign transfer of knowledge and social skills; what is often seen as educational failure is conceivably successful social control.