The University of Victoria is partnering with the Vancouver Island Regional Correction Centre for a firs-of-its-kind course.
Starting in September, 10 UVic students will join 10 incarcerated students at the Wilkinson Road prison, for weekly "Conceptions of Justice and Engaged Pedagogy", also known as "Justice and Being Human".
Associate Professor of Philosophy, Dr Audrey Yap, says the students and inmates will read and discuss several pieces of work over the 3 month course.
"So we're reading a short story by Ursula Le Guin, we're reading actually a few things by Martin Luther King. We're reading part of an essay by Camus, excerpts from a chapter by an Indigenous writer, Lee Maracle. So a bunch of different things, a lot of them has to do with ideas about justice, about what it means to be human, what it means to live in a society."
Yap says the course will create a dialogue between the students and inmates, and will allow them to learn from each other's insights and experiences, and see the similarities and differences between them.
"I think for the UVic student it will teach them a lot about how people who have had really different lives from them might see the world. How people with different backgrounds will read maybe the same things and come up with different ideas from them. Will get different things from that."
Yap adds that many inmates haven't had very positive experiences with school or education, and this will give them a new opportunity to learn, voice their thoughts and opinions, and how the philosophy based curriculum may relate to their lives.
Yap also says there's not usually a lot of cross-over between inmates and students, and this course is intended to break down barriers and biases, learn from each other's perspectives, and see that we are all human.