ABSTRACT
Following historical trends related to the role of adult language and literacy education in the USA, growing interest and importance is being placed on educational opportunities for incarcerated individuals as a mechanism for responding to mass incarceration in the USA. While discourses pertaining to educational opportunities in prison often focus on the resulting individual and societal benefits, little research exists that interrogates how these educational opportunities can contribute to further marginalizing some students. Drawing on 18 months of qualitative data, this study describes participatory action research conducted in a peer-taught, prison-based language and literacy program. Peer-instructors explored how the practices and policies, which were based on monoglossic language ideologies, contributed to further minoritizing the students through rearticulating social and linguistic hierarchies common in US society. However, this study also demonstrates how participatory action research provided the opportunity for the peer-instructors to begin to reimagine their approach to language and literacy education as they begin to recognize language and literacy as social practices embedded within particular contexts.
