Pathways to Resilience III: Beyond Nature vs. Nurture

Abstract #313
Resiliency and Peer Social Bonds: Do Shared Adverse and Marginalized Experiences Enabled Overcoming “The Odds” in Crime?
Presenter: Angelique Maes
Abstract:
The effects of parental incarceration on children are only beginning to be fully understood. So far, we know more about the detrimental effects of parental incarceration on children throughout the life course than about the positive efforts to assist the afflicted children in overcoming a detrimental obstacle in their lives. This project seeks to fill the gaps in the growing literature on the effects of parental incarceration throughout the life course by exploring ethnographic data that will be collected on peer resiliency: peer resiliency may be considered as a possible method to mitigate the harmful effects of parental incarceration throughout the life course. Building from a previous project, this project seeks to further understand how resiliency thrives and enables personal growth through peer relationships. Research on the development of resiliency through the parent/child relationship has saturated the literature: there does not seem to be research on how peer relationships enable such developments when children have parents who are incarcerated. Current research on resiliency has done well to begin to highlight the positive “buffer” social processes that can build resilience in children with incarcerated parents, but more research must be done in regards to the role peer relationships in such processes.