Resisting a Carceral Nexus: Black Foster Youth Creating Educational Networks to Be College-Going

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session Thirteen
  In Roundtable Session: Resisting the Web of Carcerality: Counternarratives of Youth Impacted by Foster Care, Homelessness, and the Criminal Justice System (Table 10)

Abstract

Problem Statement
Foster care actively tracks Black foster youth out of the college-going process. For example, in Los Angeles County (that nation's most populated foster youth county), only 51% of Black foster youth graduated from high school and only 6% of the county’s Black foster youth enrolled in a university. Foster care fails to properly support youth along their educational trajectory (Harvey et al., 2021).

It is important to understand that the foster care and education systems work in tandem with the state, and that the criminalization that foster youth endure is state sponsored (Harvey et al., 2021). There is an investment in maintaining the practice of child removal and not family reunification (Roberts, 2022). Seeing foster care and schools as sites of carceration can be jarring; however, what is problematic, is the state’s criminalization of families because they are poor people of color, using social workers as family police (Copeland & Pendleton, 2021), stripping them of family capital.

Conceptual Framework
I drew from the theory of community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005), to ensure that the examination of foster youth experiences departs from the deficit framework through which the majority of literature on foster youth continues to be framed.

Methodology
The purpose of this study was to examine and explore how Black foster youth navigate postsecondary institutions. The design of this study was qualitative and used a narrative inquiry approach (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). The participants for this study were Black students who experienced foster care after their 13th birthday, were 18 years old or older and were currently enrolled in or graduated from a four-year institution. I interviewed nine students. To triangulate (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011) the student interviews, I also interviewed staff who support foster youth on their campuses. I interviewed 10 staff total. I conducted five follow-up interviews from students and staff (29 interviews total).

Findings
The 19 participants gave their perspectives of how Black foster youth navigated college while also resisting the carceral pitfall of foster care by creating a network of support. Three findings emerged: (a) peer support; (b) campus-based programs; and (c) (chosen) family.

Discussion and Implications
This research is significant, as it underscores how universities privilege students from traditional educational networks and academic capital. Foster youth do not always have a nuclear or extended family for support. The foster care system creates barriers for relatives to have contact with each other. So if even a family or a family friend had college-going experience they were not allowed to interact with them in meaningful ways because of the family surveillance.

Findings from this study indicated that almost all students identified a supportive person from their community and campus that was supportive of them going to college. The research participants noticeably utilized their chosen family for emotional, resistance, and navigational capital. These chosen family networks worked to buffer against the aforementioned challenges. Ongoing exploration is needed on family privilege in higher education and how to create sustainable supportive systems for foster youth.

Author

• Kenyon Lee Whitman, University of Nevada - Las Vegas
  Presenting Author