Prisonization and its Consequences: An Examination of Socialization in a Coercive Setting

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to outline and assess the utility of a model capable of accounting for several consequences of confinement. Toward that end an attempt is made to integrate several variables emphasized by the two basic paradigms which have been advanced to account for patterns of assimilation into the inmate society, the “deprivation model” and the “importation model,” into a model that draws heavily on the logic of Etzioni's compliance theory.

The findings, which are based on an analysis of data obtained from a sample of 276 inmates confined in a maximum security penitentiary, provide substantial support for the theoretical expectations. Specifically, two measures of assimilation into the inmate society, degree of prisonization and type of social role adaptation, are shown to be related to several indicators of preprison experience, prison-specific influences, and the quality of post-release expectations. These two assimilation variables, in turn, are shown to be strongly associated with variables which imply that coercive organizations of the type represented by prisons are most unlikely to attain any rehabilitative goals. To the contrary, they seem far more likely to stimulate changes that are predictive of postrelease reinvolvement in criminality.     

Attachment and Racial Identity Issues:

Court battles are being wages and state laws are being challenged to enable white foster families to be considered as viable adoptive placements for black infants and young children. This article examines the issues associated with transracial adoption decision making and provides recommendations for agency practice and policy.     

Redefining Racial Categories: The Dynamics of Identity Among Brazilian-Americans

Research based on a sample of Brazilian youth living in Massachusetts reveals a variety of responses to racialisation of their phenotypes. Caught between the fluid patterns of colour categories found in Brazilian society and the more rigid racial stratification that characterises the USA, Brazilian-Americans have followed a variety of strategies to adapt to this situation. By exploring the reactions of these young adults of different appearance along the colour continuum to the constraints of the dominant society, questions concerning the future dynamics of race relations in the USA are raised against a background of the continuing post-racialism debate.     

Racial Identity Matters: The Relationship between Racial Discrimination and Psychological Functioning in African American Adolescents

This study examines the interrelationships among racial discrimination, racial identity, and psychological functioning in a sample of 314 African American adolescents. Racial discrimination was associated with lower levels of psychological functioning as measured by perceived stress, depressive symptomatology, and psychological well‐being. Although individuals who believe that other groups hold more negative attitudes toward African Americans (low public regard) were at greater risk for experiencing racial discrimination, low public regard beliefs also buffered the impact of racial discrimination on psychological functioning. More positive attitudes about African Americans were also associated with more positive psychological functioning. The results further illustrate the utility of a multidimensional framework for understanding the role of racial identity in the relationship between racial discrimination and psychological outcomes among African American adolescents.     

Racial Salience and the Consequences of Making White People Uncomfortable: Intra‐Racial Discrimination,Racial Screening,and the Maintenance of White Supremacy

Most sociological research on racial discrimination has had an “inter‐racial” focus. That is, researchers have been principally concerned with the disparate treatment that people of color receive relative to Whites in different social contexts. However, recent theoretical work emerging from legal studies suggests that an alternative conception of “intra‐racial” discrimination exists that extends beyond colorism. This theory of intra‐racial discrimination stipulates that many organizations in the “post‐racial” era desire some measure of racial diversity. Yet, in their efforts to achieve this racial diversity they screen people of color based on their degree of racial salience. Whether a given person of color is hired, promoted, or in the case of college admissions, accepted, is a function of whether or not Whites within the organization consider them racially palatable, or not overly concerned with race. This creates an incentive for people of color to work their identity to allay any concerns among Whites that they may be too racially salient. In this paper I critically review this work and attempt to further buttress its claims by highlighting how this process has clear historical precedent. I conclude by showing how the audit method can be used to empirically examine this practice contemporarily.     

The Importance of Racial Socialization: School‐Based Racial Discrimination and Racial Identity Among African American Adolescent Boys and Girls

This study examined various parental racial socialization messages as mediators between school‐based racial discrimination and racial identity formation over 4 years for African American boys (N = 639) and African American girls (N = 711). Findings indicated that school‐based racial discrimination was associated with racial identity beliefs. For African American boys, behavioral racial socialization messages mediated the relation between school‐based racial discrimination and racial centrality over time. Mediation also resulted for African American girls, but for a different set of race‐related messages (negative messages and racial barriers) and racial identity beliefs. The developmental significance of the findings and implications for future research are discussed.     

Racial Identity,School Racial Climate,and School Intrinsic Motivation Among African American Youth: The Importance of Person–Context Congruence

Researchers have been concerned with whether strong racial identification promotes or inhibits achievement motivation among African American youth, but current literatures have paid little attention to the role of youths' contexts. In this study, we outline a racial identity–context congruence framework that predicts positive benefits of a strong, positive racial identity when the context is congruent with youths' beliefs. To test this framework, we examined school racial climate as a moderator in the relationships of three racial identity variables (centrality, private regard, and public regard) with intrinsic motivation for attending school in a sample of 11th graders. Overall, results support the congruence perspective and also demonstrate how feelings of belonging at school mediate the relationship between racial identity–racial climate congruence and school intrinsic motivation.     

The Color Paradigm: The Impact of Colorism on the Racial Identity and Identification of Latinas

Existing research has provided scant analysis on the impact of colorism or skin color privilege and stigma on racial identity and identification among Latinos/as. This article explores the dynamics of colorism and the impact on racial identity and identification among Latinos/as of varying phenotypes. The experiences of a subset of eight Caribbean Latinas and one Chicana are used to illustrate how Latinas negotiate their racial identification and survive experiences of both stigma and privilege within the U.S. context. The article concludes with implications for social work research, practice, and pedagogy.     

Privileging Fieldwork Over Interviews: Consequences for Identity and Practice

Qualitative sociologists typically privilege fieldwork over interviews. What happens to fieldworkers who now ask questions but no longer hang out? What about those who rely exclusively on intensive interviewing while participant observation remains the standard? The authors examine the negative consequences of privileging fieldwork for identity and practice, the unique contributions of in-depth interviewing, and the differences in the tales that fieldworkers and interviewers tell. An inclusive identity anchored to the analytical assumptions fieldworkers and interviewers share would increase qualitative researchers' confidence and lead them to do better work.     

Beyond Identity: Queer Values and Community

This essay traces the movement within the LGBT community from relying on identity politics to considering a politics of value as a political and community-forming strategy. In the process, the author uses the work of Michel Foucault to think through how the articulation of shared values might open up personal, communal, and political possibilities otherwise delimited when LGBT people think of themselves within the confines of separate, and often separating, identity categories.     

Identity Consequences of Religious Changing: Effects of Motivation for Change on Identity Outcomes

Abstract

Comparisons of religious identity are made between two types of religious changers: (1) converts, those individuals who have changed their religious group affiliation due to change of religious belief, and (2) alternators, who have changed their religious group affiliation for some motive other than a change of belief. The religious changers are drawn from a variety of religious affiliations using a convenience sample. Analysis is quantitative, using logistic regression analysis and difference of means testing.

Predictions based in identity theory (Stryker 1980, 1987) argue that converts will show higher levels of salience and commitment to the religious identity as well as behave in ways more appropriate to the religion. Results indicate no postconversion difference between the two types. The project is a first attempt to use identity theory to address the consequences of identity change based on differing motivations. The literature is advanced through the application of quantitative methodology to a traditionally qualitative question (the conversion experience) and by shifting the focus from the process of religious conversion to its identity consequences.     

The Interface of Racial Identity Development with Identity Complexity in Clinical Social Work Student Practitioners

This paper examines the influence that one's racial identity development plays in the overall professional identity development of clinical social work student practitioners. The author discusses race, as a construct, in a post-modern world. Utilizing Saari's (1993, 2000) discussion of identity complexity, the paper demonstrates how the ability to dialogue about issues of race, in a complex and multi-faceted way, is reflective of evolution in one's racial identity development. To further one's identity development, the importance of a dialogical mode of interaction (Bahktin, 1986, 1993) is emphasized.     

Class,Conflict, and Criminalization

Abstract

Considerable attention has been given by social scientists to the relationship between social inequality and criminality. However, the dominant paradigms over the past several decades have each focussed attention upon one basic aspect of the relationship to the neglect of the other. Anomie theory emphasizes the connection between structural inequalities and deviant behavior, but neglects the definitional processes by which deviance is made a social reality. Labeling theory emphasizes definitional processes, but neglects their structural and behavioral bases and, surprisingly, consequences. Most recently, various “new criminologists” have been attempting to develop a theory that explaines how structured inequalities generate both the behavioral and the definitional realities of deviance. Two major variants are emerging: the Marxian and the Weberian. Points of agreement and disagreement are indicated, and a prognosis regarding the future development of theory is offered. Despite their basic agreement on the paramount explanatory significance of social conflict and power, Marxian and Weberian criminologists disagree on (a) the nature of scientific inquiry, and (b) the nature of social organization, and diverge on the meanings of class, conflict, and criminality. Neither theory as such is likely to become the approved paradigm for conventional research and officially sponsored studies or action programs, although Weberian theory is more likely to be tolerated, because it is more amenable to selective interpretation and modification.     

SOCIALLY EMBEDDED IDENTITIES: Theories, Typologies, and Processes of Racial Identity among Black/White Biracials

Current research on racial identity construction among biracial people derives primarily from small convenience samples and assumes that individuals with one black and one white parent have only two options for racial identity: "black" or "biracial." Rockquemore's (1999) taxonomy of racial identity options is used as a framework to synthesize existing research and to generate hypotheses that are explored using survey data from a sample of 177 biracial respondents. The findings support a multidimensional view of racial identity by illustrating that biracial people make various identity choices, albeit "choices" that are differentially available due to an individual's structural iocation.     

The Psychological Adjustment of Transracial Adoptees: An Application of the Cultural–Racial Identity Model

In response to the need for increased understanding of the identity process of transracial adoptees, the Cultural–Racial Identity Model (A. L. Baden & R. J. Steward, 1995) was developed; however, the model has yet to be empirically validated. The model allows distinctions to be made between racial identity and cultural identity, resulting in 16 proposed identities. Identities are based on the degrees to which individuals (1) have knowledge of, awareness of, competence within, and comfort with their own racial group's culture, their parents' racial group's culture, and multiple cultures, and (2) are comfortable with their racial group membership and with those belonging to their own racial group, their parents' racial group, and multiple racial groups. Four dimensions of the model were determined for study: the Adoptee Culture Dimension, the Parental Culture Dimension, the Adoptee Race Dimension, and the Parental Race Dimension. In this study, the Cultural–Racial Identity of transracial adoptees was assessed by a modified version of the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM; J. S. Phinney, 1992). Psychological adjustment was assessed by the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI; L. R. Derogatis & P. A. Cleary, 1977). The sample consisted of 51 transracial adoptees who completed mail survey questionnaires. The exploratory findings supported the Cultural–Racial Identity Model by demonstrating that the modified version of the MEIM successfully yielded variation in the potential Cultural–Racial Identities that the transracial adoptees reported. Findings also did not yield support for differences in psychological adjustment among transracial adoptees having different Cultural–Racial Identities. The implications that the results have for counseling practice and social policy were discussed.     

Community Economic Identity: The Coal Industry and Ideology Construction in West Virginia

Economic changes and the machinations of the treadmill of production have dramatically reduced the number of jobs provided by extractive industries, such as mining and timber, in the United States and other affluent nations in the post–World War II era. As the importance of these industries to national, regional, and local economies wanes, community resistance to ecologically and socially destructive industry practices threatens the political power of corporations engaged in natural‐resource extraction. Here we argue that to maintain their power (and profits) as their contribution to employment declines, extractive industries have increased their efforts to maintain and amplify the extent to which the “economic identity” of communities is connected with the industry that was historically an important source of employment. We fit this argument within the neo‐Marxian theoretical tradition, which emphasizes the roles ideology and legitimation play in maintaining elite rule. We illustrate this theorized process by analyzing the efforts of the West Virginia coal industry, which, through its (faux) “grassroots” front group “Friends of Coal,” attempts to construct the image that West Virginia's economy and cultural identity are centered on coal production. Our analysis relies on content analysis of various sources and on experience gained from field research. We find that key strategies of the Friends of Coal include efforts to become pervasively visible in the social landscape and the appropriation of cultural icons that exploit the hegemonic masculinity of the region. These findings have implications for how industries around the country, and the world, work to maintain their power through ideological manipulation.     

Ethnic and Racial Identity of Internationally Adopted Adolescents and Young Adults

Abstract

Results of studies to determine how well children who have been adopted internationally have adjusted consistently raise a concern about identity issues. This paper reports the results of interviews about their sense of racial and ethnic identity with 155 adolescent and young adults who were adopted internationally in Canada during the 1970s and 1980s. The findings are discussed in relation to the rights conferred on these children through the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption and the Canadian Multiculturalism Act.     

Multiracial Americans: Racial Identity Choices and Implications for the Collection of Race Data

In 2010, approximately nine million Americans self‐identified with more than one race on the U.S. Census – a 32 percent increase since 2000. In this paper, I review the growing body of research on this population, with a particular focus on identifying and describing factors important in shaping their racial identities. Factors explored include: social norms regarding racial classification, socioeconomic status, racial composition of one’s neighborhood and community, region, socialization by family, age, cohort, genealogical locus of multiracial ancestry, nativity, and phenotype. I discuss the broader implications of findings to‐date, with a particular focus on the ongoing scholarly discourse regarding the collection of race data in the United States.