NEW CHALLENGES FOR THE TEACHING IN WOMEN, CRIMINAL AND FAMILY CONTROL: AN EXPERIENCE OF LINKING THEORY AND SOCIETY

This paper presents the DOCOFAM project (Women, Control and Family), developed by the Center for Continuous Training and Teaching Innovation Group COPOLIS (CEFOCID-COPOLIS), recognized as Consolidated Teaching Innovation Group at the University of Barcelona (UB). DOCOFAM is about a topic, which is part of several subjects of the sociology degree at UB: the penal control of women and specifically, of those who are serving sentences of imprisonment. Specifically, DOCOFAM involves the degree subjects “Sociology of Gender” and “Sociology of the Family and Life Cycle”, as well as the subject “Woman, Control and social exclusion” that it’s part of the Master of Sociology. The main goal of the project is that students learn and share knowledge, experiences and reflections on the penal control over women, and become the agents involved within the topic. The aim of the project is that they interact with key actors like for example, incarcerated women, professionals and prison staff in Catalonia, with support entities, and, students of related subjects and Spanish researchers who have worked on the topic. The project, pending of approval at the moment, is a 3 years proposal, as each year we would work in a different stage and with diverse actors involved in the process of penal control of women.

DOCOFAM wants to address two fundamental questions. Firstly, this project interrelates different key concepts of sociology: gender, social exclusion, punitive control and family. The prison requires an interdisciplinary analysis to capture the complexity and take a critical view, it is needed to overcome a simplistic theoretical framework or a mere descriptive examination of what law and the penal institution establish. Therefore projects like this, that link knowledge and subjects to address the multidimensionality of the issue, are needed. Secondly, the classroom work does not allow discussion on topics like this. It is necessary to add innovative elements in teaching that make possible a more direct, closer and active learning of what is studied theoretically. Because all of this, the project aims to listen to incarcerated women to fully understand the experience of imprisonment; to professionals to address how to solve problems, which may contribute to attaining a professionalizing learning; and to the association networks for its role in supporting women in prison.

With this communication we present the main innovative elements of the project, such as: the contextualization of learning in understanding issues related to real and concrete situations; the mentoring between masters and degree students; the peer learning and the collaborative learning; and the fact that the whole project is permeated by the transversal competences of critical thinking, teamwork and creative and entrepreneurial skills.