Situating Vulnerability in Research: Implications for Researcher Transformation and Methodological Innovation

In this paper, I broaden definitions pertaining to vulnerable participants and elaborate on issues in conducting research with justice-involved individuals and their families. I explore how special human subjects protections may inadvertently silence participants and further marginalize them, along with the social inequality that characterizes “at risk” research populations. Finally, I discuss how vulnerability can invite researcher transformation and methodological innovation and highlight the value of researcher reflexivity, community based participatory research and mixed methods approaches

Incarceration and reentry of fathers into the lives of their families

Working PaperAs many as 10,000,000 U.S. children have at least one parent, usually their father, who has been imprisoned (Reed & Reed, 1998). This is especially problematic in minority communities. We care about this issue because incarcerated fathers who maintain family ties and reenter family life successfully after incarceration are less likely to be rearrested (Petersilia, 2003). This presentation illuminates a case study in the making and represents our attempt to break the usual pattern of studying prisoners and recidivism from either an institutional or macro level within criminology, demography, or sociology or , conversely, an individual level with a deviance perspective. Instead, we use a family perspective-examining family processes, support mechanisms, attachment and bonding, and the reconstitution of family structures following periods of ambiguous parental absence and presence

Doing Family Research at the Jail: Reflections of a Prison Widow

In this article, I reflect on my experience running a small family research project at a local jail. I focus on methodological and policy issues inherent in controversial research, as well as my own personal reactions to the criminal justice system. Implications of insider status are discussed as they apply to researcher stance and responsibilities in corrections settings

The Role of Emotions in Fieldwork: A Self-Study of Family Research in a Corrections Setting

In this study, we document a reflexive process via bracketing techniques and the development of a conceptual map in order to better understand how emotions that arise in the field can inform research design, implementation, and results. We conducted a content analysis of field notes written by a team of researchers who administered an interview to caregivers bringing children to visit an incarcerated family member at a local jail. Our self-examination revealed themes around the team\u27s discomfort connected to the institutional jail setting and intense emotions regarding the life situations of study participants, their treatment by jail staff, and our own concerns about leaving the research setting. We offer recommendations for scholars conducting research in similar environments with vulnerable participants

Parental antecedents of instrumentality, expressiveness, and gender role preferences

This study explores the relationships between parenting behavior of mothers and fathers and self-report measures of college students' instrumentality, expressiveness, and gender role preferences. A nonrecursive model is proposed based on the assumption that gender role phenomena are interrelated. Data were collected from a sample of 215 college students. Analysis was done with two stage least squares and simultaneous equations which is an extension of linear multiple regression. Results indicated that higher levels of maternal control were associated with lower levels of students' expressiveness and more traditional gender role preferences. Furthermore, a bidirectional path between students' instrumentality and expressiveness and a path from instrumentality to gender role preferences were revealed. Positive levels of instrumentality were associated with greater levels of expressiveness and vice versa while greater instrumentality was associated with more modern gender role preferences. Results also suggest that earlier studies utilizing univariate techniques seem overly simplistic and inflate the importance of general parental socialization practices in the face-of the information gained by utilizing simultaneous equations

Prisoners’ Families’ Research: Developments, Debates and Directions

After many years of relative obscurity, research on prisoners’ families has gained significant momentum. It has expanded from case-oriented descriptive analyses of family experiences to longitudinal studies of child and family development and even macro analyses of the effects on communities in societies of mass incarceration. Now the field engages multi-disciplinary and international interest although it arguably still remains on the periphery of mainstream criminological, psychological and sociological research agendas. This chapter discusses developments in prisoners’ families’ research and its positioning in academia and practice. It does not aim to provide an all-encompassing review of the literature rather it will offer some reflections on how and why the field has developed as it has and on its future directions. The chapter is divided into three parts. The first discusses reasons for the historically small body of research on prisoners’ families and for the growth in research interest over the past two decades. The second analyses patterns and shifts in the focus of research studies and considers how the field has been shaped by intersecting disciplinary interests of psychology, sociology, criminology and socio-legal studies. The final part reflects on substantive and ethical issues that are likely to shape the direction of prisoners’ families’ research in the future

Doing Family Research at the Jail: Reflections of a Prison Widow

Abstract In this article, I reflect on my experience running a small family research project at a local jail. I focus on methodological and policy issues inherent in controversial research, as well as my own personal reactions to the criminal justice system. Implications of insider status are discussed as they apply to researcher stance and responsibilities in corrections settings

Against the Odds: A Structural Equation Analysis of Family Resilience Processes during Paternal Incarceration

Partial funding for Open Access provided by the UMD Libraries' Open Access Publishing Fund.On any given day, approximately 2.1 million children in Europe have an incarcerated parent. Although research indicates that material hardship is associated with parental incarceration, and particularly paternal incarceration, little is known about family processes that may mitigate the harmful effects of such hardship on children with an incarcerated parent. Guided by a resilience framework, this study examined how family processes mediate the effects of material hardship on youth academic adjustment within the context of paternal incarceration. Using Danish data that assessed key family constructs, structural equation modeling was used to perform a mediational within-group analysis of primary caregivers (n = 727) to children with an incarcerated father. Results indicate that although social support and parenting skills did not yield mediating effects, caregiver mental health strongly mediated the effects of material hardship on youth academic adjustment during paternal incarceration. Findings suggest that economic conditions, as well as caregiver mental health symptoms, are important areas of intervention that may promote family-level resilience for youth of an imprisoned father. We conclude with research and practice recommendations to advance our understanding of resilience among families with an incarcerated parent.https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18211159