Data collection spanned the period of relocation of Brisbane Women's Correctional Centre from Annerley to Wacol, from a traditional lock-and-key establishment to a keyless unit. This study investigated inmate women's accounts of education by using interview data and analysis of policy. Although the study drew on feminist criminology theory and conversation analysis to provide a theoretical dialog for investigating prison education, this paper investigates more broadly five key themes. They are categorized as a culture of containment and surveillance, types of education, access to education, pedagogical issues, and the role of support groups in education. Women's prisons and their rituals have been constructed by men for men, sometimes with concessions made for women, and criminal laws have been drawn with reference to the way that men define women and perpetuate the dependence of women on more powerful male others. The structural and interactional features of oral texts such as interviews were examined to understand the educational experiences of women inmates. The research found that women's involvement in prison education is framed by a culture of containment and surveillance. In the keyless prison, heightened electronic security reported increases in internal body searches, and routine head counts were found to exacerbate the difficulties women inmates experienced in prison education. As a research policy imperative, this paper recommends a longitudinal case study to investigate women inmates' education access and experiences. 29 references