Philosophical Psychology

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Impact of philosophical workshops on the

prison population: a qualitative and quantitative
evaluation

José Barrientos-Rastrojo, Javier Saavedra-Macías & Edson Renato Nardi

To cite this article: José Barrientos-Rastrojo, Javier Saavedra-Macías & Edson Renato Nardi
(01 Jan 2024): Impact of philosophical workshops on the prison population: a qualitative and
quantitative evaluation, Philosophical Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/09515089.2023.2300696

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2023.2300696

Published online: 01 Jan 2024.

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PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY
https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2023.2300696

Impact of philosophical workshops on the prison

population: a qualitative and quantitative evaluation
a b
José Barrientos-Rastrojo , Javier Saavedra-Macías
c
and Edson Renato Nardi
a
Department Metaphysic and Contemporary Philosophy, Ethics and Political Philosophy, Sevilla,
Spain; bDepartment of Experimental Psychology, University of Seville Faculty of Psychology, Sevilla,
Spain; cCentro Universitário Claretiano, Batatais - SP, Brasil

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Background: Prison creates philosophical needs due to the Received 22 July 2022
exceptionality of the situation. This study explores how phi­ Accepted 21 December 2023
losophy can meet these needs by focusing on three aspects: KEYWORDS
critical thinking, personal relationships and the government Philosophical practice;
of passions. It builds on similar interventions in several coun­ prison; critical thinking;
tries and is proposed as a research that bypasses some stoicism
limitations of previous projects in prisons.
Method: Following the participation of 81 inmates in 22 philo­
sophical sessions over six months, the results of both interven­
tions were analyzed using mixed methods, as well as a pretest
posttest design with a control group. Specifically, Webster’s Self
Assessed Wisdom Scale, a questionnaire and an interview with
four participants were used. These methods were triangulated
in order to obtain data from the various methodologies and to
improve the validity and reliability of the results.
Results: It was demonstrated that the experimental group
showed significant progress in relation to the categories
“openness”, “humor” and “emotion regulation”. Participants
also showed a progression in categories related to the pro­
ject’s goals. These results allow for a description of the cate­
gories that explain in what sense philosophy can act in the
context of imprisonment.
Conclusions: This study demonstrates, on the one hand,
how philosophy workshops involve outcomes linked to cog­
nitive, affective and relational aspects. Furthermore, it pro­
vides evidence to confirm previous studies and interventions
that are more modest in their results and use less rigorous
scientific methodologies.

Introduction
Philosophical Practice is a philosophical field that trains people in
certain thinking skills, such as critical thinking, phenomenology, and
hermeneutics, among others. Its results are the improvement of

CONTACT José Barrientos-Rastrojo [email protected] Department Metaphysic and Contemporary

Philosophy, Ethics and Political Philosophy, Office P 213, Calle Camilo José Cela, s/n, Sevilla 41018, Spain
© 2024 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 J. BARRIENTOS-RASTROJO ET AL.

personal and social life, and resilience when a person is facing difficul­
ties. Its scope of action covers various realms and profiles: formal
education (García Moriyón, 2002), including university (Barrientos-
Rastrojo, 2022b; Betés & Juez, 2006; ETOR, 2010; Frutos, 2020;
Guerra, 2010; Mandujano, 2010; Mariscal & Iglesia, 2013; Sánchez
Alcón, 2011; Vergara, 2008; Weiss & Ohrem, 2016); healthcare
(Álvarez et al., 2022; Barrera, 2011; 2012; Feary, 2004; Knox, 2016,
2020; Kono, 2015); and other leisure contexts, such as workshops held
in libraries or bookshops or even indigenous communities (Barrientos-
Rastrojo and Gómez, 2019, 2023a; Conesa, 2008). In each context,
specific philosophical competences are exercised: analytical and critical
thinking skills (conceptualization, definition, problematizing), stoic for­
titude or the government of passions, hermeneutical skills, abilities to
develop authentic dialogs, attention and focus through stoic exercises,
transcendental perception or contemplation of eidos.
In recent decades, philosophy courses and workshops have been conducted
in various prisons. Among the courses, the following stand out: the University
Studies Programme in prisons of UNED, in Spain; the philosophy courses of
Ahlstrom-Vij (2017), of the University of London; those of Nikki Cameron
(Szifris, 2021, p. 33) in Low Moss Prison; the courses of Mike Coxhead, Andy
West and Andrea Fassolas in HMP Belmarsh, Downsview and Wandsworth
(Coxhead – O’Donnell – Szifris, 2021, p. 95); the seven weekly philosophical
lessons of Duncan Pritchard in the Scottish Prisons HMP Low Moss and
HMP Cornton Vale (Pritchard, 2021, p. 132); the courses in Her Majesty’s
Prison (Wellingborough, England) led by Alan Smith (Smith, 2011, 2012);
and the project of Dale Brown and Zoann Snyder that proposed to 10 students
of the Western Michigan University and 13 inmates of the prison of
Midwestern State to create philosophical projects after attending the course
“Education and Human Flourishing” (Brown & Snyder, 2021, p. 205). In
South America, we find the Bemba del Sur workshops, initiated by the
University in Prison Programme of the College of Philosophy and
Humanities of the National University of Cordoba, Argentina (Hunziker
et al., 2016) and Stoic philosophy classes in Mexico (Alonso, 2019).
Philosophical workshops usually focus on two philosophical skills,
such as critical thinking and dialogue, as opposed to courses that
focus on the transmission of knowledge. Among these philosophical
workshops, we can highlight those conducted fortnightly in the Tegel
prison, in Berlin, by Gronke and Uwe (2002); the philocafes carried
out by Are Seljevold in several prisons in Norway; the dialogical
workshops provided by the charity Philosophy in prisons, in several
prisons in UK. In America, Zinaich1 designed and implemented work­
shops in correctional institutions in Illinois. Also in the U.S.A., Feary
has led several philosophical programs in prisons on the East Coast
PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY 3

since 1998. Finally, DaVenza Tillmanns and Crespo (2007) organized

several philosophical dialogs at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.
Despite the diversity of these activities, research on the effectiveness and
impact of these interventions on their participants in prisons is very scarce.
Three studies can be identified: Kristine Szifris’ doctoral thesis, the Crito
project and the BOECIO project.
Szifris (2018) designed a set of philosophical workshops for four
groups of six inmates from two English prisons: Grendon and Full
Sutton. The intention was to explore the role of philosophy as an
educational course. The four courses, which did not include control
groups because of the qualitative nature of findings, were spread over
a period of twelve weeks. The methodology of the meetings had two
sources of inspiration: the Socratic dialogs and the Philosophy for
Children community of inquiry (Szifris, 2018). In addition, Szifris used
several stimuli to promote the critical and dialogical abilities of partici­
pants; therefore, she used optical illusions (Szifris, 2021, p. 75) to work
on epistemological errors or the ship of Theseus to work on the essence
of an object. Furthermore, she contrasted philosophical opposing theories
to promote reflection (Szifris, 2021, p. 198), i.e., Descartes vs Hume
(Szifris, 2021, p. 90) or Kant vs utilitarian ideas (Szifris, 2021, pp. 57–
58). She remarked that she delivers “the philosophy course in the form of
a community of a philosophical inquiry that encouraged communal
dialogue” (Szifris, 2021, p. 111).
Indeed, Szifris devised an ethno-graphically-led study, and her study is
a theory-building research, not a theory-testing one, because, she argued,
there aren’t previous studies on the topic (Szifris, 2021, p. 24, 34). The study
used mixed qualitative and quantitative instruments. Quantitative data were
used to construct a test, and its validity was verified. The qualitative ones are
in-depth interviews with the inmates after their participation in the sessions
of the project (Szifris, 2021, p. 103), semi-structured interviews before the
course (Szifris, 2021, p. 212), informal interviews with staff members, non-
participant prisoners and volunteers.
In addition, she takes notes on a dictaphone after each meeting (Szifris,
2021, p. 36), she wrote fieldwork notes (Szifris, 2021, p. 60) and she was
observing two days per week in each prison to gather data; she proposed even
meetings with the chaplaincy in Full Sutton to understand the faith dimension
in prison and with members of the psychology department to understand the
psychological training inmates where receiving (Szifris, 2021, p. 214).
Concerning quantitative instruments, she used three measurement
instruments, the Self-Reflection and Insight Scale (SRIS) (Grant et al.,
2002), which accounts for improvements in self-reflection and perso­
nal perception; the Basic Empathy Scale (BES) (Jolliffe & Farrington,
2004, 2006, 2007); some items of the Measurement of the Quality of
4 J. BARRIENTOS-RASTROJO ET AL.

Prison Life (MQPL) scale (Auty & Liebling, 2014), which assesses
personal growth, well-being, lack of comfort or distress and
autonomy.
The second project is Crito (Walker & Lock, 2017), which was
developed in a prison in England. Twelve 3-hour lessons per week
were designed with two types of content: “Introduction to philosophy”
and “Stoicism”. As in the previous case, the number of participants
was very small: five students in the first group and six students in
the second group. Coincidently, there was no control group. The
research methodology was qualitative. A number of interviews was
conducted, lasting between 10 and 20 minutes. The categories result­
ing from the data were divided into six improvement factors: (1)
insight or the ability to notice errors in one’s own and others’
thoughts; (2) reflection or the ability to evaluate past personal actions;
(3) impulsiveness or violence; (4) personal growth; (5) the ability to
discover existential purpose; and (6) quality of life, which encom­
passed both awareness regarding the causes of suffering and increased
existential strength so that they could move away from such
situations.
Lastly, we address the intervention that we evaluate in this article:
the BOECIO project or Estudio de la eficacia de la Filosofía Aplicada
en Prisión para el desarrollo de las virtudes dianoéticas y éticas (Study
of the impact of Philosophical Practice in prison for the development
of dianoetic and ethical virtues). Its initial goal consisted of the design
and implementation of a protocol for philosophical workshops in
Latin American prisons and its evaluation with a mixed methodology
(Barrientos-Rastrojo, 2023b). The workshop protocol encourages (1)
the governance of emotions (passions) and the refinement of ethical
virtues; (2) critical thinking, as well as the refinement of dianoetic and
intellectual virtues; (3) and the transformation of identity through
meaningful experiences while preventing drop-out. Once the pilot
sessions had been evaluated, a fourth level of practice was introduced:
the reinforcement of communicative actions and authentic dialogue.
BOECIO’s team is multidisciplinary (philosophers, psychologists,
educators and criminologists, anthropologists and lawyers), although
its action in prisons is philosophical. Currently, it is active in
Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Spain and Mexico. In totality, this initia­
tive has reached nearly a thousand people, although the first results hail
from Brazil as presented herein. Its aim is to assess the efficacy of
philosophical workshops carried out with inmates by social science
methods.
The aim of this paper is to evaluate the first findings of the BOECIO
project: the workshops with inmates in a Brazilian prison.
PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY 5

Method
Participants and institutional context
The participants of the workshops who completed the pretest were 81
Brazilian male inmates serving sentences in Serra Azul I prison in São
Paulo with a mean age of 30.35 years (range 18 to 65 years), standard
deviation of 6.71 years, without diagnosed mental illness and serving sen­
tences for various offenses. Sexual offenses (rape, pedophilia) were excluded
from the study. The mean sentence served in years was 6.39, with a standard
deviation of 5.61. The remaining years to end the sentence had a mean of
8.78 and a standard deviation of 7.49.
The inclusion criteria covered the following items: to be men of legal age
serving a prison sentence in the Serra Azul I prison in São Paulo; have
permission to access the workshop offered by the penitentiary center;
sufficient reading and writing skills to understand texts in their mother
tongue; and be able to answer the questionnaires, interviews, tests and other
assessment tests.
The main exclusion criterion for recruitment was the absence of sufficient
reading and writing skills to read the workshop texts. A second exclusion
criterion was the inability to regulate emotions or the existence of pathol­
ogies that prevented the normal development of the sessions. In addition,
inmates who, due to their dangerous condition, were kept in isolated wings
were also excluded. Another exclusion criterion was the existence of
a serious psychological pathology (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, border­
line personality disorders, depressive psychosis, etc.), as well as severe
anxiety or affective disorders.
Serra Azul had 1,545 inmates in March 2022, although it only had a total
capacity for 845 inmates. Overcrowding was congruent with the national
reality of Brazil, which had 442,000 prison beds, although its population was
close to 700,000. In fact, Brazil has the third highest population of detainees
in the world, namely 690,722. It has 328 inmates per 100,000 people, a high
rate compared to 240 in Colombia, 186 in Argentina, 164 in Mexico and 126
in Spain. Serra Azul had an overall occupancy rate in 2019 of 182.84%,
higher than the average rate for Brazil.

Design

According to a quantitative perspective, the workshop assessment design can

be considered a pre-post study with control groups. The study recruited eight
groups of between 15 and 20 participants. The two types of workshops,
philosophy (experimental group) and English classes (control group), were
presented in plenary sessions. Due to the homogeneity of the groups in gender
(male), age, type and years of sentence, level of education and background,
6 J. BARRIENTOS-RASTROJO ET AL.

and the organizational difficulty to implement a random allocation of the

groups, inmates could freely choose which group they would like to join.
The control group was taught traditional English classes (foreign
language classes for these Brazilian inmates). It was ensured that the
methodology was minimally dialogical (dialogue is one of the philoso­
phical elements used in philosophical workshops). Notwithstanding,
teaching mechanisms such as learning through songs were integrated.
Every week, exercises were proposed that had to be performed daily, as
was the case in the experimental group. Thus, the English classes
reproduced the sessions of the experimental group. The number of
sessions was 20 and the content of the sessions was based on a list of
topics using a basic level.
The experimental group sessions were comparable to those of the control
group, as they went through the following stages: (1) review of the previous
week’s practice; (2) performance of a practical exercise; (3) dialogical and
maieutic explanation of the theory; (4) exercise carried out by the students;
(5) proposal of a weekly task; and (6) brief final individual dialogue with
whoever required so, individually or in groups. Twenty sessions were
performed, fourteen with stoic exercises (diakrisis, prosoché, cosmic vision,
premeditatio malorum, gymnastiké, akroasis, enkrateia) and six with critical
thinking exercises (conceptualization, argumentation, analysis of language
and rational criteria). These exercises have a specific protocol that seeks to
develop three competences: critical thinking, the government of passions
and interpersonal relationships. An initial and a final session were added to
the 20 sessions for both groups, for the delivery of the tests. Thus, the entire
protocol was completed in approximately six months.
The quantitative analysis was triangulated with a semi-structured inter­
view with a sample of three participants from the experimental group and
one from the control group. The interviews were conducted at the end of the
intervention and lasted an average of 54 minutes. The interview was ana­
lyzed together with the analysis of the inmates’ answers to a questionnaire
completed in the middle of the experiment (twelfth session). Therefore, our
research can be considered mixed, quantitative-qualitative that benefitted
from the advantages of these types of designs (Bryman, 2008).

Instruments

A scale, a semi-structured interview and a questionnaire were used and are

described below.
The Self Assessed Wisdom Scale assesses the quantity and quality of
treasured experiences and the knowledge gained therefrom. Among its
factors are: emotional regulation; reflexivity and reminiscence, i.e., the
ability for self-knowledge in relation to past and present actions; open-
PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY 7

mindedness or the ability to be flexible in one’s ideas and fighting

dogmatism; humor, the ability to face difficult circumstances with
humor. Its internal consistency in its original validation was 0.78 and
other psychometric indices are acceptable (Webster, 2003).
The test was originally in English. It was translated into Portuguese by the
BOECIO project coordinator in Brazil. Two project technicians made a second
independent translation. Subsequently, two independent teachers made
a reverse translation from Portuguese to English to check for semantic coher­
ence with the original. The Portuguese version was also adapted for prison
jargon, as the design of the test had to be based on the context of a prison
network. In this sense, meetings were held between BOECIO technicians and
project coordinator to avoid misinterpretations in the introduction of prison
jargon.
The qualitative instruments consisted of a semi-structured interview with
the following questions:

(1) How did you imagine the project when we first appeared? What did
you think would be its intentions and outcome? What was the first
impression after the first session?
(2) Which exercise was the most relevant in relation to the changes
experienced?
(3) What was the main change that BOECIO brought about in your life?
(4) What is the difference between other conventional courses and
BOECIO workshops?
(5) Was there a concept developed in the sessions that stood out for you?
Why?
(6) How did the sessions influence your life in prison?
(7) What will you try not to forget about the BOECIO project in the
future?

Secondly, an inter-test or questionnaire in the middle of the experiment

(twelfth session) with the following questions was given out:

(1) Number of sessions attended.

(2) Interest aroused by the sessions (0-10).
(3) Would you recommend the sessions to other inmates?
(4) Do you feel that there were any positive or negative changes in your
life because of the sessions?
(5) Could you explain five changes you have experienced because of the
project and what they were?
8 J. BARRIENTOS-RASTROJO ET AL.

Procedure and ethical aspects

The Claretian University Center, the coordinating entity of the project in
Brazil, was the institution that promoted the first contacts with the director of
the Serra Azul prison. Several meetings were held to present the content of
the workshops and the project to the director and the workshop coordinators
within the penitentiary center. Once the project had been accepted, five
people were recruited, all of whom had a degree in Philosophy or in
Education. Then, the workshops were presented to the inmates, who were
divided into two groups according to BOECIO’s inclusion and exclusion
criteria. The instructors received all the information about the project,
including the detailed development of each of the meetings, the measurement
instruments and the precise attitudes with which to address the inmates.
In addition, the general PI (Principal Investigator) of the project
held weekly on-line meetings that were 60-minute sessions with the
team of instructors during the whole process, covering a total of 30
meetings. The first meetings were dedicated to the introduction of
Philosophical Practice. The following ones were dedicated to the
explanation of each session, as well as settling any queries. Hence,
meetings were most commonly devoted to dealing with the content of
the previous meeting and preparing for the next one.
The mortality rate was 53,1% (43 out of 81 participants). However, it
should be borne in mind that more than half of this mortality was due to the
institution closing one of the control groups (22 participants). Therefore,
the real mortality rate (25,9%, 21 participants) was due to prison transfers or
the prison sentence coming to an end. In such regard, only two persons
(2.47%) decided to drop out of their own accord.
Regarding ethical aspects, the experiment was approved by the ethics
committee of the Faculdade de Ciências e Letras of Universidade Estadual
Paulista or the College of Sciences and Letters of São Paulo State University
(reference nº 38399614 .8.0000.5400) and by the ethics committee of the
Hospital das Clínicas of the College of Medicine of the University of São
Paulo (reference nº 86514218.5.3001.5563). For purposes of compliance with
ethical aspects, participants were informed of the nature of the experiment;
they were given a datasheet and an informed consent that they have signed;
they were notified that they could leave the experiment at any time; and
a register was created that linked a code to each participant that would remain
in the possession of the PI of the project and the coordinator in Brazil.

Data analysis
To analyze the quantitative data from the Webster scale, a repeated
measures ANOVA was used, establishing the time of measurement
PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY 9

(pretest and posttest) as the within-subject variable and the group

(experimental and control) as the between-subject variable. Years
remaining until release was deemed a co-variable. Kurtosis and skewness
were used for each variable to explore normality. In order to verify the
basic assumptions for running an ANOVA, Box’s M-test was used to test
the assumption of homogeneity of variance and covariance of the
matrices. The effect size was calculated using the partial Eta squared
(η2 p) applying Cohen’s interpretation criteria (Cohen, 1988).
A probability of .05 was considered as the cutoff point for considering
the main effects and the interaction as significant and as the strictest
criterion, and .1 as the least conservative criterion, taking into account
the small sample size.
Thematic analysis was used to study the qualitative data. This is the most
parsimonious way of structuring qualitative data (Braun & Clarke, 2006;
Vaismoradi et al., 2013). Crucial themes or categories that highlight the differ­
ences between the control and experimental groups were obtained. On the one
hand, the method served to transcend these quantitative results by inductively
offering new elements of analysis and, on the other hand, to hierarchize the most
recurrent categories of the research. The categories were structured into the
three intervention objectives (critical thinking, the government of passions and
communicative actions). The qualitative study yielded a posteriori categories
that allowed to compare the contents regarding the participants in the control
group with those of the experimental group.
The third author of this paper conducted the interviews. They were then
analyzed by the first author, who extracted the first system of categories. Next,
the researcher who conducted the interview reviewed the system, in order to
introduce and correct variables that were detected in the interview. Finally,
the second author audited the results, discussing the conflicts until agreement
was reached on the definition of the categories and their relationships.
As an extraordinary measure, and to increase the reliability and validity of
the qualitative results, a parallel evaluation was included in the analysis of
the results by the authors. Ten professors unrelated to the project, holding
Masters and PhD degrees in Pedagogy and Philosophy from the University
of Goiás, conducted this parallel evaluation. They received the recorded
interviews and questionnaires of the control group and experimental group
for appraisal. Each evaluator was supplied with a form with three requests
for analysis:

(1) Indicate with one word or paraphrase the main learnings of the
participants that appear in the materials received.
(2) Justify your answer by indicating, for each learning, at least three
sentences read or heard in the document and indicate the code of the
person who carries it out.
10 J. BARRIENTOS-RASTROJO ET AL.

(3) Establish a relationship between learning processes by creating

a scheme that connects them.

The contributions of these evaluators were compared with the categories

found by the authors of this article. Those categories that were in accordance
with the authors’ previous analyses were retained in the results. Where
discrepancies existed, they were discussed and eliminated if they could not
be defended with arguments based on the data.

Results
In this section, first, we will show quantitative results. Secondly, we will deal
with qualitative results from the analyses of the interviews and
questionnaire.

Quantitative results

The internal consistency of the Webster’s test factors as assessed by

Cronbach’s coefficient alpha was poor and ranged from 0.587 for the
humor factor to 0.678 for the reminiscence/reflectivity factor.
In all analyses run for each of the Webster’s test factors, the Box’s M test was
not significant (p > .05). Therefore, the assumption of homogeneity of variance
and covariance of the matrices was confirmed. Similarly, Levene’s test for
equality of variances of error was not significant for each factor (p > .05).
As can be seen in Table 1, significant P-values were found in three factors
of Webster’s test. In the emotional regulation factor, the interaction between
group type and time of assessment was found to be significant (p=.047) with
a medium-large effect size (η2 p = .1). In Table 1 and Figure 1, it can be seen
that, while the control group worsens slightly in the posttest in the emo­
tional regulation factor, the experimental group shows a pronounced rise in
the score. In this same factor, we found that the main effect of the group type
(control or experimental) was also significant considering the cutoff point
below 0.1, specifically p = .057, with a medium effect size. The experimental
group scored higher on this factor than the control group. Table 2 Repeated
measures ANOVA Webster’s factors.** < 0.05; * < 0.1.
As for the humour factor, we found the most significant data.
Again, we found a significant interaction between the group type
and the time of assessment with p= .031 and η2 = .116, that we can
consider high. In Figure 2, we can see that, while the control group
improves slightly in the posttest, the experimental group has
a dramatic rise in score after the intervention. This time, we found
a main effect in the within-subject comparison (pre-post) with p
= .013 and η2 p = .151, that we can consider very high. We can say
PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY 11

Table 1. Means and typical deviations of Webster’s factors.

Pre-test Post-test
Webster’s test factors M Sd M Sd
Experience
Control (Ctrl) 42.68 3.44 43.68 3.66
Experimental (Exp) 41.18 41.71 42.36 4.39
Emotional regulation
Ctrl 35.42 7.24 34.42 6.13
Exp 33.54 7.68 37.86 6.77
Reminiscence/reflection
Ctrl 42.10 3.74 42.68 4.30
Exp 41.77 5.52 42.54 4.30
Humour
Ctrl 28.21 6.80 29.15 5.10
Exp 27.09 6.21 32.68 5.35
Openness
Ctrl 36.79 7.85 37.94 4.72
Exp 34 9,80 40 5,98

39

38 37.86
37

36
35.42
35
34.42
34
33.54
33

32

31
Pretest Postest

Control group Experimental group

Figure 1. Webster’s factor test: emotional regulation.

that, overall, all participants improved their score in the posttest

significantly. Using a cutoff point of p < .1, we can consider significant
the probability of the covariate years remaining until release with p
= .075 and a median effect size η2 p = .08. In this case, the shorter the
time until release, the higher the score on the humour factor of
Webster’s test.
To end, in the openness factor, we found the interaction between time of
assessment and group type to be significant with p = .094 and an effect size
η2 p = .072, which we can consider medium. Figure 3 shows how the
experimental group, starting from a lower score than the control group,
showed a steady growth in scores in the posttest, surpassing the control
group. For the rest of the factors, experience and reminiscence, no interaction
or significant main effect were found.
12 J. BARRIENTOS-RASTROJO ET AL.

Table 2. Repeated measures ANOVA Webster’s factors.

gl F p η²
Experience
Pre-Post 1 .378 .542 .010
Pre-Post*Group 1 .410 .526 .011
Pre-Post*Years 1 0.63 .804 .002
Group 1 .980 .422 .017
Years 1 .660 .328 .025
Emotional regulation
Pre-Post 1 .304 .304 .008
Pre-Post*Group 1 .110 .047** .1
Pre-Post*Years 1 4.209 .742 .003
Group 1 .609 .057* .092
Years 1 3.862 .44 .016
Reminiscence/reflection
Pre-Post 1 .149 .702 .004
Pre-Post*Group 1 .024 .878 .001
Pre-Post*Years 1 .019 .891 .000
Group 1 .914 .914 .000
Years 1 .588 .588 .008
Humour
Pre-Post 1 6.757 .013** .151
Pre-Post*Group 1 4.997 .031** .116
Pre-Post*Years 1 .370 .514 .010
Group 1 1.176 .285 .030
Years 1 3.363 .075* .081
Openness
Pre-Post 1 2.601 .115 .064
Pre-Post*Group 1 2.953 .094* ,072
Pre-Post*Years 1 .001 .977 .000
Group 1 .13 .908 .000
Years 1 .152 .699 .004

33
32.68
32

31

30
29.15
29 28.21
28

27 27.09

26

25
Pretest Postest

Control group Experimental group

Figure 2. Webster’s factor test: humour.

PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY 13

41
40 40
39
38 37.94
36.79
37
36
35
34 34
33
32
31
Pretest Postest

Control group Experimental group

Figure 3. Webster’s factor test: openness.

Qualitative results – control group analysis

The first fact that is worth noting is that the answers to the questionnaire of
the control group were less elaborate and reflective. No participant of the
control group answered and wrote five changes to the question “Could you
explain five changes you have experienced because of the project and what
they were?”. Actually, some participants left this answer blank. In contrast,
almost all participants in the experimental group answered this question in
detail.
Furthermore, it was not unusual to find plagiarism in the answers of the
control group, which was not the case in the experimental group.
Finally, the control group often confused personal changes with
descriptions of the classroom climate: this is evident in responses
such as “the sessions are dynamic”, “there is music” (CG3, CG4,
CG5, CG9).
In any case, improvements could also be observed in the control group.
They were all linked to social inclusion seen in terms of professional
productivity outside prison. This category consists of three consequences
of the workshop: linguistic communication, open-mindedness and motiva­
tion to learn, as shown in Figure 4.

Social inclusion
Social inclusion can be divided into two levels: affective and professional.
The affective aspect is described as the increase in the inmates’ desire to
relate to their families and social circle. The professional aspect is aimed at
improving their skills to get a job once they serve their prison sentence.
Thus, CG52 pointed out that the courses:
14 J. BARRIENTOS-RASTROJO ET AL.

Professional 1 Social inclusion Social relations

productivity (affective)

1.2 New belief

1.1 Language skills 1.3 Motivation to learn
systems

Knowledge of Self-
English confidence

Safe classroom
environment

Fun classroom
climate

Figure 4. Categories for the control group analysis.

Excerpt 1

“(. . .) prepare us for a life in society (. . .) the sessions helped me to understand people
and accept their answers (. . .) I managed to analyse my life in a different, more
productive way”.

According to CG11, the English classes would help him to “get a good job”, and
CG52 emphasized that “the courses prepare us for a life in society”. In fact, this
learning lessens the stigma since, according to the same inmate: “people will
think that where yesterday there was a criminal, thanks to the workshop, there is
now a worker, a family man who overcame big problems in his life”.

Language skills. The most outstanding outcome of the control group ses­
sions was English language learning, which facilitated the aforementioned
social inclusion. Many inmates highlighted that they learned the meaning of
words they did not know. For example, CG27 said that he understood words
such as “WhatsApp”.

Excerpt 2

“Many times, after starting the course, when I heard or saw English words, it was easy
for me to translate them. This was strange in my previous daily life (. . .). One example
is the word ‘WhatsApp’, which is widely used all over the world. However, I did not
know its meaning. Thanks to the course I learned its meaning”.

CG38 was able to read the texts of some commercial product labels written
in English, and CG8 mentioned that he learned the names of some animals
and numbers. However, the improvement of semantic knowledge does not
lead to an improvement in inter-subject relationships.
PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY 15

New belief systems. The control group accessed beliefs and values different
from those they were surrounded by. Classroom dialogs made them listen to
others, and some pointed out that it gave them the possibility to think
“differently” (CG52).

Excerpt 3
“The group helped us to see things in a way that completely changed our minds. I used
to think in one way, but thanks to the content that was presented to us; I gained
another perspective on my life. I was able to analyse life in a more productive manner,
because the way I was thinking before was not positive but negative”. (CG2)

However, this novelty does not imply an increase in tolerance, criticality or

creativity, as its outcome presupposes that other people’s worldviews
(beliefs) are more valid than the ones previously held, without analyzing
them in detail. This is in contrast with the open-mindedness of the experi­
mental group, who are more reflective and analytical in nature, as we shall
see below.

Motivation to learn. This category has two dimensions: the desire to con­
tinue learning and the generalization of knowledge beyond the classroom.
CG18 explains: “When I go back to my cell, I go back talking in English
about what I learned in the sessions”. This experience is common among
those who learn foreign (English) words used in everyday life (CG27),
foreign expressions linked to gratitude (CG33) or questions that serve to
ask another person by name (CG35).

Qualitative results – experimental group analysis

The main categories found in the experimental group were: “reflecting”,
“rational problem solving”, “meaning of life”, “personal evolution” and
“communicative actions”. The first three have been grouped a posteriori
in the above category “critical thinking”. The fourth has been related to the
“government of passions”. The last one, “communicative actions”, is asso­
ciated with “interpersonal relationships”. Thus, these categories are distrib­
uted around the three project goals: development of critical thinking, the
government of passions and improvement of interpersonal and social rela­
tionships. In the following section, we describe the subcategories obtained
from the analysis, showing examples of excerpts from the participants.

Critical thinking
This category implies the improvement of the ability to analyze external
(reflection) or internal (existential purpose) objects or events and the increase
of conflict resolution skills. The analysis of the evidence collected during the
16 J. BARRIENTOS-RASTROJO ET AL.

interview and questionnaires is summarized in the following category system

in the Figure 5.
The category reflection consists of the critical analysis of events that leads
to a more independent way of looking at reality. For instance, for participant
EG53, the maieutic method helped to create his own philosophy of life.
Maieutics is a philosophical method that consists in eliciting truthful
answers from another person by means of questions. This technique was
common in the sessions so as to not impose vicarious and ideological
content, but for the participants to discover their authentic truths or philo­
sophy of life. Another participant, EG17, noted:

Excerpt 4
“I started to assess day-to-day events in prison in a much better way. They also
allowed me to analyze life outside prison. Finally, they helped me to see how I can
improve my actions”.

The increased interest in culture is evident in the experimental group. Many

participants started reading books, as evidenced by phrases such as “it
triggered my curiosity to read” (EG15). In fact, some subjects started study­
ing some degrees (EG11), whereas others resumed their studies (EG5).
As a product of reflection, re-signification involves a new way of under­
standing critical issues in life. Through this category, the realities faced by
the participants are viewed from a different perspective. For example, most
of the inmates consider “prison” as “a way of death” because they cannot

2. Critical thinking

2.2 Rational
2.1 Reflection 2.3 Meaning of life
problem solving

Open
perspectives/self-
reflection

Improve culture

Resignify

Figure 5. Categories linked to “critical thinking”.

PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY 17

enjoy activities that they used to carry out when they weren’t prisoners.
After the sessions, they provided a new meaning to the word: “prison is an
opportunity of living” because they discovered that most of their friends
died in the street and that prison protected them from being killed.
In fact, philosophy not only allows “acquiring new knowledge”, but also it
questions previous knowledge, as “it is necessary to lose some of the beliefs
we had”. The following excerpt clearly shows the importance of this cate­
gory (GE54).

Excerpt 5

“We conducted a process to analyse problems from other angles. Hence, an exercise
that caught my attention was to modify habits that I always repeated in the same way.
For example, I tried to change my routine, such as stopping in the middle of my meal
and thinking about the meaning of the food I was eating, or simply stop eating or
doing things I liked to do one day in order to do something else. These activities
helped me to see reality in a different way to the one that always reinforced my
previous true [dogmatic] views and also tore apart the certainty I had about my
assertions that I believed to be true [and had never questioned]”. (EG54)

Another category was rational problem solving. This involves progress in

skills that facilitate coping with difficulties. Moreover, this coping mechan­
ism avoids manipulation of participants’ emotions and emphasizes their
argumentative and discursive thinking. EG30 illustrated this category with
an actual example where his problem-solving skills were demonstrated.

Excerpt 7

“Water scarcity is always a problem in prison because of overcrowding. We thought

about how to solve it and, instead of protesting, we asked to go to the place where the
prison staff would have water. They allowed us to do so and we solved the problem
without resorting to rioting and by using dialogue”.

Finally, the category meaning of life involves acquiring the skills to critically
reflect on the meaning of existence and to be grounded in a life of value. In doing
so, one avoids personal emptiness and pursuing goals that are not one’s own,
which can be imposed manipulatively by external sources. Participant EG23
emphasized this change of life in the next excerpt, regarding this category.

Excerpt 8

“Before, I thought that my life was not really working in any area. After the sessions,
my way of thinking changed. Today, all I think about is getting out of here, studying,
finding a job and getting my life back on track without doing the things I did wrong in
the past. [. . .] Before I took the course and participated in the sessions, my only
thought was to get out of this place and get back to my life of crime”.
18 J. BARRIENTOS-RASTROJO ET AL.

The government of passions and emotional regulation

The government of passions/emotions involves acquiring practical pru­
dence (phronesis) in one’s actions and the fortitude to master the course
of one’s own life rationally rather than having them controlled by passions.
The BOECIO project stresses that such government cannot be normalizing,
i.e., it must not increase numbness mediated by an action that does not
belong to the subject, nor lack of criticism. On the contrary, it means being
in possession of one’s own inner law, a.k.a. personal autonomy. The dia­
gram of categories stemming from this point is as follows.
Participants describe the category personal growth in Figure 6 as related to
the perception of progress in strengthening existential composure or calm
when facing serious problems, thus generating a more productive and
dispassionate life. Some respondents refer that personal evolution necessa­
rily leads to a sense of freedom, which would increase existential composure
and acting productively and dispassionately.
EG3 indicates that the workshops prompted him “to evolve at all
times in order to be a winner in life”, and EG54 said that he was very
struck by “the idea of self-improvement and the way in which the Stoic
currents act to achieve it”, in fact, Epictetus and Boethius have become
models for his everyday life. This improvement is embodied in two
ways. Firstly, calmness or composure was achieved in situations that
had previously been emotionally out of control for the participant.
Likewise, EG59 recounts how one day an inmate insulted him one
morning and he responded with silence:

3. Government of
passions

3.1 Personal growth

3.2.2 Acting
3.2.1 Existential productively and 3.2 Sense of
composure dispassionately freedom

Circular thinking

The past

Figure 6. Categories linked to the “government of passions”.

PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY 19

Excerpt 9

“Remembering a session, I clung to the idea that I did not agree with what he was
saying and that his words were not directed at me. When he saw that I was not
nervous, he held his words back”.

The categories acting productively and dispassionately and existential com­

posure depend on a sense of freedom. Hence, participants free themselves
from circular thinking and from being entrenched in a past of which they
feel they are both executioners and victims. Linked to circular thinking,
EG18 describes the change experienced in the sessions in two eloquent
sentences: “Before: I was imprisoned by the past. After: I was liberated
from whom I was”. In addition, EG32 describes how the past prevented
him from moving forward:

Excerpt 11

“I was always regretting the mistakes I made and the time I had wasted. In fact, I was
thinking about them every day. However, I discovered [thanks to the meetings] that
this attitude would not bring me any benefit but, on the contrary, was harming me”.

The category of existential composure is based on overpowering passions

and gaining the serenity necessary to be the master of one’s own existence.
EG16 was haunted by intrusive, violent thoughts; in particular, he was
waiting to get out of prison to kill his ex-wife, whom he blamed for much
of his misfortunes. However, the workshops helped him to develop
“patience” and he no longer has “those thoughts”.

Excerpt 10

“Before the sessions he had these intrusive thoughts about other people and, in
particular, he was waiting to get out of prison to kill his ex-wife, whom he blamed
for much of his misfortunes. However, the workshops helped him to develop
“patience” and he no longer has “those thoughts”.

Along with composure, comes acting productively and dispassionately.

Following the fruits of re-signification, EG24 learned that “we find
good things even in suffering”. For his part, EG51, drawing on the
exercise of cosmic vision, noted: “if I distance myself from the pro­
blem it does not affect me” (11:30). EG54 used amor fati, i.e., the
acceptance of facts that cannot be changed to achieve the same
results: “if you cannot change something, you must learn to live
with it”.
20 J. BARRIENTOS-RASTROJO ET AL.

Communicative actions
Habermas has distinguished between strategic and communicative actions
(Habermas, 2015). The former are those relationships where selfish and self-
interested goals are pursued overtly or covertly. Communicative actions,
however, promote links that facilitate authentic dialogue and connection
without mediating self-centered interests and are aimed at strengthening
such a bond; this is the case of friendship. The survival contexts of inmates
encourage their proclivity for strategic actions.
The qualitative findings show an improvement in their communicative
relationships with three groups: educators, fellow inmates and society. They
can be read in Figure 7.
Perceived interest and trust strengthens communication with educators.
EG53 explains the situation:

Excerpt 12

“To see people who were investing in us, who trusted us, who were dedicating [their
time] to us, who were opening up new avenues of knowledge for us, I think that’s very
important”.

Communication with fellow inmates leads to improved relations between

inmates. EG53 reflected with confidence on this point: “when you spend
a long time in prison, people close up. However, during the sessions,
one opens up. Philosophy helps to live in society, to live with others”.
EG41 added: “I gained skills to be more understanding with my
neighbours”.
Communication with society is targeted toward all those who remain
outside the prison. EG43 made this experience concrete by talking about

4. Communicave acons

4.1 Communicaon with 4.2 Communicaon with 4.3 Communicaon with

educators fellow inmates society

Trust

Interest

Figure 7. Categories linked to “communicative actions”.

PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY 21

his wife:

Excerpt 13

“My wife has a lot of problems to deal with, like the house, the children and her
personal life (. . .) It is all very stressful in her life and she comes here sometimes
feeling stressed out and nervous. This course did me a lot of good because I learned to
calm her down and find a way to help her, just like wise people do”.

Discussion
This article aims to evaluate the impact of the BOECIO project workshops
on inmates in the Serra Azul prison in Brazil. Its results can be compared
with studies of two types of activities in prison: teaching projects and
empirical studies on Philosophical Practice workshops. These studies,
while showing significant results, have some methodological shortcomings.
For example, they do not include control groups or do not use validated
questionnaires or tests. In some cases, they do not separate technicians from
researchers and do not have an external audit process, so biases cannot be
ruled out. In addition, there are cases where the project has not been
evaluated by any international committees or IRBs and they do not consider
the ethical implications of their work (Barrientos-Rastrojo, 2022a). In any
case, we consider it necessary to relate our results to some of the works cited
in the introduction.
It is worth mentioning that critical thinking is one of the most consistent
improvements in BOECIO. Webster’s test showed a significant increase in
open-mindedness in the experimental group, and the questionnaires and
interviews highlighted the sharpening of skills for reflection, re-signification
and rational problem solving. This facilitated the attainment of a sense of life
that worked as a protective factor against the nihilism and despair that were
dominant in the pretest phase.
In this sense, the open-mindedness demonstrated in the BOECIO project
coincides with one of the objectives of Gronke and Nitsch’s Socratic dialogs
(Gronke & Uwe, 2002). Hence, philosophy would help to move from the
private sphere to the general sphere in order to return to everyday life with
tools that allow for better analysis, once abstract concepts have been studied.
Similarly, da Venza Tillmanns (DaVenza Tillmanns & Crespo, 2007) stres­
ses that the purpose of his workshops is to increase open-mindedness and
understanding, acquiring a perspective that goes beyond a reductionist
perspective. In other words, to approach issues and problems from
a broader point of view. In this way, people in prison can see that the fact
that they are serving a sentence does not depend solely on a personal
22 J. BARRIENTOS-RASTROJO ET AL.

criminal action, but on a social structure that encourages having over being
or on the educational weakness linked to a poor social class.
Castillo qualifies that this open-mindedness is possible thanks to the
promotion of creativity “because the work related to the symbolic and the
possibility of creating metaphorical resources is something that runs
through, with its particularities, all the workshops”.2 In this line, Feary
points to critical thinking as one of the five factors that improved in her
workshops. Szifris’s inmates agree with this finding. She states that
“Philosophy has opened their minds and broaden their perspectives”
(Szifris, 2021, p. 83) and they have developed a more flexible way of thinking
(Szifris, 2021, p. 85) because participants have been exposed to a variety of
points of view and to abstract theories (Szifris, 2021, p. 89). In addition,
Duncan Pritchard suggests that his participants are more open to new ideas
(Pritchard, 2021, p. 134). The BOECIO project assumes that critical think­
ing is useful for rational problem solving, including everyday issues such as
lack of water.
However, this does not lead to normalization, but to questioning which is
not perceived as something negative against the system, but against the
ideological elements of the system, i.e., those who wish to control the lives of
the inmates. Actually, during the processing of the workshops, there has
only been the occasional conflict with criminal groups for whom numbing
was a mechanism of domination.
In the experimental group, in comparison to the control group,
a significant increase in emotional regulation and humour was observed.
The government of passions is connected with an intensification of emotional
regulation and the ability to face everyday difficulties with humour. This
generates existential composure and a sense of freedom in private life and
progress in productive action in the social context. The Crito project
(Walker & Lock, 2017) is in accordance with this point in its interviews by
detecting a reduced “impulsiveness”. Szifris attests that distress indicators
are reduced in six out of eight cases (Szifris, 2018) and improve their abilities
to listen to each other (Szifris, 2021, p. 104) and “to involve discussion in
a non adversarial arena” (Szifris, 2021, p. 105).
Accordingly, Seljevold3 notes a significant reduction in aggression,
and Zinaich4 received astounding comments from security staff in the
Illinois prison because a violent inmate had stopped with her constant
fits of rage and there had been a marked decrease in the number of
days in solitary confinement. Critical thinking was a key factor to
develop personal identity because it gives space “for personal explora­
tion” of the Coxhead’s inmates (Coxhead – O’Donnell – Szifris, 2021,
p. 94). Critical thinking gives participants skills to think carefully “about
the potential consequences of their actions and to understand another
person’s perspective before acting” (Coxhead – O’Donnell – Szifris,
PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY 23

2021, p. 98). Duncan Pritchard repeats the same: philosophical work­

shops increase critical thinking abilities, enables the skill to look at
things “from all different points of view” (Pritchard, 2021, p. 133) and
open to new ideas (Pritchard, 2021, p. 134).
The two factors that are catalysts for the government of passions in
the BOECIO project are the liberation from the past (past guilt) and
from negative circular thinking triggered by confinement. Therefore,
BOECIO is committed to active coping strategies far removed from
avoidance, always complementing resignification with strategies for
tackling problems. Instead of the lethargy and paternalism of consola­
tion that does not enable the facing of difficulties and thus only
smothers symptoms, our workshops prompt a critical attitude with
two outcomes: the increased resilience of the subject and the construc­
tion of a stronger and critical identity. If this goal is achieved, the
person will be able to act productively and dispassionately, i.e., under­
standing productivity as per the rational and critical government of
one’s own personal existence.
Communicative actions improved between inmates, between inmates
and educators and with society beyond the prison. This reality is
consistent with the objectives of other projects in prisons. For instance,
Szifris (Szifris, 2018, p. 261) finds that the level of distress decreased
among the eight respondents in the posttests because it created a safe
environment where inmates could converse by “dropping their masks”.
Participants improved the respect for other people’s ideas (Szifris, 2021,
p. 113) and they felt they could express their perspectives “without fear
of personal insult or prejudices being formed” (Szifris, 2021, p. 175).
This is the result of creating a safe space for dialogue (Szifris, 2021,
p. 97), of increasing trust among participants and between them and
her (Szifris, 2021, p. 193) and because of “establishing community and
cooperation” (Szifris, 2021, p. 176). This is the same that discovered
Pritchard: respect to others (Pritchard, 2021, p. 134) and their ideas are
enlarged because they cultivate “virtuous intellectual character”
(Pritchard, 2021, p. 138).
Now, we are going to move to the general conclusion. The present
study is the first attempt, to the best of our knowledge, to evaluate the
effectiveness of philosophical workshops in prisons with an ambitious
design using control groups. Quantitative and qualitative results con­
firm an improvement with a significant effect size, especially in the
promotion of critical thinking, in the experimental group compared to
the control group.
The triangulation of quantitative and qualitative data through
a mixed design (Jick, 1979) increases the reliability of our findings.
Other authors had already suggested these results, but this is the first
24 J. BARRIENTOS-RASTROJO ET AL.

time that they have been confirmed with this methodology. From our
findings, we can suggest that the funding of such workshops in
prisons would have a positive impact on inmates’ cognitive styles
that could lead to drop-out.
Although BOECIO is an improvement on previous projects, there
are limitations. First, inclusion in the control and experimental groups
could not be randomly generated, but was decided by the inmates
themselves. This was due to several reasons: (1) respect for the
principle of benevolence or non-maleficence embodied by their deci­
sion or desire, (2) the nature of the philosophical workshops in the
experimental group, which requires the subjects’ willingness to parti­
cipate and (3) the prison system prevented prisoners from being
forced to enroll in classes they had not voluntarily accepted.
Secondly, larger samples are needed. Unfortunately, the COVID-19
pandemic prevented the completion of a second data collection. Despite
this, our project significantly increased the number of participants of
previous studies. Thirdly, some sessions had to be suspended due to
various reasons (risk of riots or failure of electrical systems). This led
to a five-month project that ended up taking six months. Fourthly, we
were also unable to obtain information on the offenses committed by the
participants. The institutions vetoed such information, and we could not
have the reports of each inmate as they were considered sensitive data.
We were told, in general terms, what were the main types of offenses and
those that were excluded from the group (sexual offenders). With this
information in hand, it would have been possible to study the impact of
the workshops on specific groups of inmates. Fifth, Webster’s test has
a questionable structure and could be improved by a proper factor
analysis. To end, it would be extremely interesting to consider long­
itudinal studies in which we could follow up with the inmates and
study the impact of these workshops on recidivism.

Notes
1. Information about Zinaich’s work can be found in an interview that can be down­
loaded at the following link: <https://philopractice.org/pp/sam-zinaich-interview-and
-comments/>.
2. Personal e-mail from Rodrigo Castillo sent to the first author of this paper on
30 September 2020.
3. Seljvold recounts this in an interview for the Agora website, which can be downloaded
here <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6Snzew_AL0>, last accessed 20 March 2022.
4. Zinaich recounts this in an interview for the Agora website, which can be downloaded
here <https://philopractice.org/web/sam-zinaich>, last accessed 29 March 2020.
PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY 25

Acknowledgements
This article would not have been possible without the cooperation of the technical director
of the prison Reginaldo Neves de Araújo, the pedagogical coordinator Kelson Pimentel
Alvim and the technicians who conducted the workshop, Lucas Ferreira da Silva, Cristina
Triffoni, Gabriel Brussolo and Lucas Roberto Ubbi. Their availability and good work should
be repaid by mentioning each of their names here. We are also grateful for the assistance of
external auditors from the state of Goiás and other Brazilian regions who offered their
services in order to increase the reliability of the categorical system of this article.
Our deep gratitude is extended to the anonymous reviewers, whose detailed and thought­
ful comments and ideas have improved this paper immensely.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
This work was supported by the European Union – FEDER projects under Grant US-
201800100015439. It is part of the FEDER research project “Estudio de la eficacia de la
Filosofía Aplicada en Prisión para el desarrollo de las virtudes dianoéticas y éticas” (“Study
of the impact of Philosophical Practice in Prison for the development of dianoetic and
ethical virtues”). It is also a result of the Centro de Filosofía Aplicada con P.R.E.Sos BOECIO
(Center of Philosophical Practice for inmates and people at social risk BOECIO) (http://
institucional.us.es/boecio).

ORCID
José Barrientos-Rastrojo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0127-2644
Javier Saavedra-Macías http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2328-7708
Edson Renato Nardi http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4157-1200

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