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This study aimed to describe and analyze the work on values withing the adult education of the correctional service by gathering teachers’ and supervisors’ experiences of how and why they work with values that should characterize adult education. This has been done through an analysis of their experiences based on deliberative democratic theory and deliberative dialouge to identify challenges and opportunities in their professional practice. The interviews were conducted using a semi-structured approach with a phenomenographic approach, leading to the following conclusions:

Teachers and supervisors face the daily challenge of interpreting and integrating the values in a way that includes all students with different cultural backgrounds and values. Finding a balance between promoting equality and respecting different perspectives can be difficult to achieve. Integrating the values can be challenging when students’ behaviors do not align with the expected values, making it difficult to transfer the values to practical situations and to get students to reflect on their actions and consequenses. This requires long-term and continuous work to challenge and reshape students’ values and attitudes.

However, with deliberation as a teaching method, teachers and supervisors can promote understanding, reflection, and dialouge regarding the values. By actively creating a respectful environment, students can be encouraged to express their opinions and reflect on their values, leading to increased awareness and understanding of the values. This includes approaches such as clear communication of rules and goals emphazising the values, individual conversations, and active intervention in cases of abusive treatment, where teachers and supervisors can demonstrate what is acceptable and unacceptable to create a respectful and inclusive environment.