Education behind bars and beyond prison: incarcerated women's education aspirations and barriers in Ukraine

The Constitution of Ukraine mandates that the complete secondary education be compulsory. While women have access to free secondary education in prisons, this constitutional requirement is not enforced across all prisons. Furthermore, higher education is not easily accessible in prison and is further fraught with challenges post incarceration. This qualitative research study draws on the conceptual framework of adult education motivations and barriers. Conducted in a minimum-security prison for women in Ukraine, it illuminates incarcerated women's education experiences, post-secondary education aspirations, and barriers. The findings, derived from interviews with 21 women, four teachers, and eight staff, elucidate how incarcerated women downplayed the institutional, situational, and dispositional barriers. Instead, they focused on what I term ideological barriers. The study sheds light on the need to expand the framework of education barriers by including ideological barriers couched in the dominant neoliberal belief system of individual will and accountability.