Little Red Riding Hood goes to jail: An experience of participative writing with students and detainees

ABSTRACT

This article illustrates how Little Red Riding Hood has been used in a workshop conducted in prison aimed at a mixed audience of students participating in a Social Work Degree Course and detainees. First of all, it presents concepts at the core of the didactic part of the workshop. Second, the methodological path that has characterized the experiential side of the seminar is illustrated. Finally, one of the results is discussed: a version of Little Red Riding Hood written in a participatory manner by inmates and students together.

KEYWORDS:

• Little Red Riding Hood
• fairy tale
• teaching
• criminology
• group work
• corrections
• participative writing
• edgework
• desistance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 The lunch breaks, shared with the students in an area outside the prison, separate from the prisoners, became extremely precious moments to share feedback on the workshop, especially for the least experienced student.

2 Considered by many to be Italy’s most important twentieth-century writer for children, Gianni Rodari was awarded the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1970.

3 Many crime films have been dedicated to Little Red Riding Hood, hardening political discourses around criminal responsibility and growing public fears of random violence and predatory strangers (see Greenhill & Khom, 2013; Khom & Greenhill, 2014).

4 In the “Nivernais” version, used in the workshop, Little Red Riding Hood is naked and goes to bed with the wolf but, having sensed the dangerous situations he pretends to have to pee. The wolf ties a thread to her foot and lets her go, a thread that the girl knots at a plum and thus manages to escape.

5 For example, one detainee said he wasn’t able to understand what was happening when he committed the crime.

6 Moral: Children, especially attractive, well-bred young ladies, should never talk to strangers, for if they should do so, they may well provide dinner for a wolf. I say “wolf,” but there are various kinds of wolves. There are also those who are charming, quiet, polite, unassuming, complacent, and sweet, who pursue young women at home and in the streets. And unfortunately, it is these gentle wolves who are the most dangerous ones of all.

7 The gender contents were not investigated exclusively because they would have required a deviation too demanding from the planned route. It was not a simple renunciation because a strong training need on these issues emerged clearly from the group discussions.