Paternal incarceration : its influence on self-esteem and educational performance in childhood and adolescence

Abstract

Parental incarceration is known to adversely affect the development of children and adolescents. The present study investigates the possible impact of paternal incarceration influences on the self-esteem and educational development of a small sample of children and adolescents. This study involves a triangulation of research methods, through the use of self-esteem measures for the children and adolescents, analysis of their academic records before and during paternal incarceration and interviews with teachers. The opening chapter of the literature review discusses various perspectives of psychosocial and educational development. This is followed by a review of the research advances on the effects of parental incarceration on prisoners' dependants. The findings of this study indicate that the children of incarcerated fathers have a slightly lower global self-worth than the rest of their classmates. This was not the case with the adolescents in the sample. This study indicates that out of the incarcerated fathers' dependants, children may be affected more than adolescents. The scholastic self-confidence of the children in the sample is observed to be lower than that of their classmates, however the adolescents' scholastic self-confidence results are the same as that of their classmates. The children's academic records show an overall decline during paternal incarceration while the adolescents show an increase. The theme of stigma and labelling emerges as a possible contributing factor. The thesis concludes with suggestions for future research and implementation along with the limitations of the study.