Degree Type
Dissertation
Date of Award
2006
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Department
Family and Consumer Sciences Education and Studies
First Advisor
Beverly Kruempel
Abstract
Qualitative research was conducted at a Midwestern state women's prison to explore how six incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women created their mothering subjectivities prior to their imprisonment. It also investigated how their mothering subjectivities were affected by their experiences in the prison's intervention programs specifically with the Storybook Project of Iowa: a mother-child support program that focused on literacy. This feminist narrative research explored how prison intervention programs, when coupled with the mother-child support project, transformed the women's understandings of themselves and their mothering. This transformation was aided by the women's self-reflective use of narrative through a series of three interviews. The study has implications for programming in women's prisons, advocating the use of intervention programs along with mother-child support literacy programs. Through their experiences with these programs the incarcerated mothers rebuilt or nurtured relationships with their children, connected with family members caring for their children, improved their literacy skills and those of their children, reconsidered their mothering identity and improved their perception of self, and through interactions with the program's volunteers acknowledged the community's support of them and their children. In addition this study has implications for reducing recidivism of incarcerated mothers through the women's improved relationships with their children and family members.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.31274/rtd-180813-16508
Publisher
Digital Repository @ Iowa State University, http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/
Copyright Owner
Betty Chamness Trost
Copyright Date
2006
Language
en
Proquest ID
AAI3229127
File Format
application/pdf
File Size
231 pages
Recommended Citation
Trost, Betty Chamness, "Doing mothering from prison: using narrative to explore the experiences of participants in a mother-child support program " (2006). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 3025.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/3025
Included in
Criminology Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance Commons, Social Welfare Commons, Women's Studies Commons