Locked Up and Locked Out: Educational Status Ambiguity and Future Aspirations of Incarcerated Youth

• In Event: Roundtable Session 79
  In Roundtable Session: Diversity, Discourse, and Disruptions in Local Contexts

Abstract

This study examines the extraordinarily ambiguous nature of school enrollment status for six incarcerated youth serving sentences in a secure custody facility in Louisiana. No longer enrolled in the public school system, these six juveniles had been re-assigned from the facility’s high school classroom to the facility’s computer lab, a site ostensibly for the use of GED-preparatory software. Through a narrative approach, the author learned that their attitudes toward educational attainment were generally positive but harbored resentment or expressed confusion over their enrollment status. The ambiguity of their current status, as well as their disillusionment concerning their future educational prospects, contributed to a relative narrowing of their future careers and goals.

Author

• Jonathan Patrick Arendt, OISE/University of Toronto