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Adolescents with Incarcerated Parents: Toward Developmentally Informed Research and Practice

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Children of Incarcerated Parents

Abstract

A substantial portion of the millions of American children who have experienced parental incarceration are adolescents. Research on the intergenerational consequences of parental incarceration has largely focused, however, on either pre-adolescent samples or aggregated across childhood and adolescence or adolescence and young adulthood. The result is that we know comparatively little about how parental incarceration affects well-being during this unique, critical juncture of the lifespan. Normative developmental changes in physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development can influence how adolescents think about, cope with, and respond to the experience of parental incarceration. These changes also have implications for the kinds of research questions we ask and how we develop and implement intervention programs. This chapter provides an overview of the major biological, cognitive, and psychosocial transitions that occur during adolescence and reviews existing studies on adolescents with incarcerated parents. We also provide recommendations for developmentally informed research and practice with this population.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Child and Family Studies, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA

    Elizabeth I. Johnson

  2. Department of Human Development and Family Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    Joyce A. Arditti

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  1. Elizabeth I. Johnson
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  2. Joyce A. Arditti
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Correspondence to Elizabeth I. Johnson .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Child Well-Being, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA

    Judy Krysik

  2. Department of Criminology Law and Society, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

    Nancy Rodriguez

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Johnson, E.I., Arditti, J.A. (2022). Adolescents with Incarcerated Parents: Toward Developmentally Informed Research and Practice. In: Krysik, J., Rodriguez, N. (eds) Children of Incarcerated Parents. Children of Incarcerated Parents: From Understanding to Impact. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84713-5_2

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