Schools as Surveilling Institutions? Paternal Incarceration, System Avoidance, and Parental Involvement in Schooling

Parents play important roles in their children's lives, and parental involvement in elementary school in particular is meaningful for a range of child outcomes. Given the increasing number of school-aged children with incarcerated parents, this study explores the ways paternal incarceration is...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American sociological review 2017-08, Vol.82 (4), p.657-684
Main Authors: Haskins, Anna R., Jacobsen, Wade C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attachment
Caregivers
Child abuse
Childhood mental disorders
Children
Elementary Education
Elementary school students
Elementary Schools
Families & family life
Family roles
Family school relationship
Father-child relations
Fatherhood
Fathers
Heterogeneity
Home based
Imprisonment
Incarceration
Mothers
Parent Participation
Parent School Relationship
Parent-child relations
Parents
Parents & parenting
Prisoners
School Involvement
Schools
Social institutions
Social life & customs
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Summary:Parents play important roles in their children's lives, and parental involvement in elementary school in particular is meaningful for a range of child outcomes. Given the increasing number of school-aged children with incarcerated parents, this study explores the ways paternal incarceration is associated with mothers' and fathers' reports of home- and school-based involvement in schooling. Using Fragile Families Study data, we find that a father's incarceration inhibits his school- and home-based involvement in schooling, but associations for maternal involvement are weaker. Results are robust to alternative specifications of incarceration that address concerns about selection and unobserved heterogeneity. Findings also hold across levels of father-child contact. We also conducted a test of the system avoidance mechanism and results suggest it partially explains reductions in school involvement for fathers following incarceration. Given the reoccurring interest in the interconnection between families and schools and how this translates into success, this study suggests that paternal incarceration is associated with lower parental involvement in schooling and highlights the role of system avoidance in this association. Attachment to social institutions like schools is quite consequential, and this work highlights another way mass incarceration influences social life in the United States.
ISSN:0003-1224
1939-8271
DOI:10.1177/0003122417709294