Udelar Peer Tutoring in Prisons: Processes and Learning

In this paper, we present the results of the systematization and analysis of the final papers of the Peer Tutoring course (TEP) with students from the University of the Republic (Udelar) in prison (EUPL). This course was designed to strengthen the entrance and retention of Udelar students in general from the perspective of collaborative learning, which has an impact on the dynamism of learning processes both for those who tutor and for those who are tutored. The TEP developed lines focus on populations or situations that merit specific educational support, including those oriented to EUPL. This specificity invites us to problematize the scope of the TEP in this context as well as to think about the new meanings that the tutors construct. Since it is a central part of the university policy of teaching in prisons, this article focuses specifically on the subjective discursive constructions of the tutors. To achieve this, we use a methodology of documented review of the final papers of those who took the peer tutoring course in the 2019 and 2020 cohorts. The results we present here refer to the learning and subjectivity production processes of the peer tutors after taking the TEP course, as exposed in these papers, distinguishing three dimensions: the vision of the prison after having been tutors in that context, the perspective of education in prisons, and the implications of the TEP in the personal learning trajectories of those who carried out the tutoring.