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Access Type
WSU Access
Date of Award
January 2023
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Robert Ty Partridge
Abstract
Racialized mass incarceration – resulting from social and criminal justice policies that increased the use of arrest and incarceration in the last four decades – has long been understood to have significant consequences for formerly incarcerated people, their families, and communities. A novel theoretical framework was developed to study parent incarceration and child well-being, integrating Critical Race Theory and Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory to form a framework called Integrated Critical Race Ecological Systems (ICRES). It aims to address gaps in the literature by considering the interplay of historical, structural, and systemic racism across the different levels of ecological systems. The study focused on three research questions through a mixed methods approach: (1) how do the experiential factors of parent incarceration differ among individuals, particularly in relation to race and ethnicity? (2) how do differing experiences of parent incarceration collectively influence outcomes such as mental health, school discipline, and arrest? (3) How do macro factors like neighborhoods and perceptions of cultural racism impact the experiences and outcomes of children who experienced parent incarceration? To answer these questions, this study employed a mixed-method approach, utilizing quantitative data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal cohort survey, and qualitative data collected through 29 life narrative interviews with adults who experienced parent incarceration as children. The outcomes included mental health, well-being, school suspensions, and arrests. Latent profile analyses and qualitative interviews pointed to the essential role that race/ethnicity and systemic racism, manifested through neighborhood structural disadvantage, played in influencing children’s outcomes. In particular, school suspensions and youth arrest followed predictable patterns, where Black and Hispanic students were more likely to experience these outcomes than their white counterparts. The results were mixed for mental health outcomes, with Black youth experiencing lower mental health symptoms than the other two groups. The qualitative narratives provided detailed stories that supported these findings. While the impact of parent incarceration on child outcomes is strongly shaped by race/ethnicity, neighborhood factors, and structural and systemic racism, there may be mechanisms that support positive mental health outcomes for children, especially Black children, whose communities are systematically experiencing racialized mass incarceration.
Recommended Citation
Hassoun Ayoub, Lama, "Examining Parent Incarceration And Child Well-Being Through An Integrated Critical Race Ecological Systems (icres) Framework" (2023). Wayne State University Dissertations. 3948.
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/3948