Teaching in Incarcerated Environments - Completed Modules

ASCCC Teaching in CDCR: Equity in Curriculum Resource Guide

Header image with text: Academic Senate for California Community Colleges; Leadership, Empowerment, Voice


Teaching in CDCR: Equity in Curriculum Resource Guide

Welcome! The Equity in Curriculum Resource Guide serves as a professional learning platform for instructional faculty, counselors, administrators, and institutions of higher education invested in teaching, counseling, and supporting students within California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) institutions or similar settings, with the goal of building and improving incarcerated higher education programming, learning experiences, and student successes.
The guide was developed as a collaboration of Rising Scholars Program faculty made possible by an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant, the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC), and the Foundation for California Community Colleges. Faculty contributors produced and organized the content, and began the work of curating the ongoing development of each module with input from panels of reviewers consisting of formerly incarcerated students, graduates, scholars, and professionals. For the reference of all potential future collaborators and participant contributors, the History and Development Download History and Development of this project provides a more in-depth overview of the foundational and future stages of the Equity-in-Curriculum Resource Guide.
The Equity in Curriculum Resource Guide is made to be updated, added to, and improved over time. Additional content and opportunities for networking and collaboration will be available on a recurring basis. We welcome you to offer any added external resources you feel could substantively benefit the content of any of the modules included within the shell. We aim for full ADA compliance/accessibility for all external resources (e.g., videos must be captioned accessibly/accurately). Please feel free to share, from your affiliated college email address, any resources (and where you feel they could fit), and/or provide any commentary, and/or share any specific recommended additions or amendments, using this “Contributions and Commentary” form Links to an external site..

Additional Resources in Development

  1. Sample Assignments and Additional/Updated Resources
  2. Added Testimonials from Students, Alum, and Faculty
"ASCCC Teaching in CDCR: Equity in Curriculum Resource Guide" by Equity in Curriculum Mellon Grant, Academic Senate for California Community Colleges Links to an external site. is licensed under CC BY 4.0 Links to an external site.

A student incarcerated at the time of this recording shared a personal letter with one of the faculty contributors for the Equity-in-Curriculum Resource Guide, about their experiences as a Black man navigating inequitable treatment of People of Color within both educational and criminal justice contexts. With the student's permission, the letter was read and recorded aloud by a volunteer meeting the student's discretion. The letter is replicated on the Race in the Prison Classroom page, and provided here as a digitally and vocally mediated representation of the kinds of experiences many of our students persistently face; and as a portrayal of the broader systemic circumstances surrounding carceral-impacted students and the experiences of teaching/learning in incarcerated spaces.