Tag: sociology

Aged Out

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Plot:

Dr. Lanetta Greer has owned and run a nonprofit group home for teenage girls for many years. In Aged Out, she looks at the long-term implications of being placed in Out-of-Home Care (OHC). This is a qualitative research study, compiled based on interviews and narratives of 8 participants who were in OHC during at least part of their childhood. These participants have all “aged out” of the foster care system – that is, they are above the age threshold to still be receiving care. Aged Out is essential literature for professionals working with people in OHC, and would also be important reading for parents and families (biological, adoptive, and foster) of kids in OHC.

What I loved most:

When we have kids, my husband and I are planning to adopt from foster care. As such, I try to read any and everything I can get my hands on relating to the foster care system. This was scholarly literature that took me back to my grad school days – it’s been a hot minute since I read through a methodology section. But it was so great to see research focused on the experiences of youth who have been in foster care. My favorite part was reading the narratives, and being able to learn directly through quotes from study participants. I’m hopeful that service providers will read this to know how to better work with kids in OHC, but I’m also hopeful that this research will reach people who make policies and legislation that directly governs the lives of these kids.

Read this book if you like:

Research, sociology, qualitative studies, considering policy implications

Book details:

  • Author: Dr. Lanetta N. Greer
  • Publisher: Archway Publishing
  • Date of Publication: April 26, 2020
  • Age Recommendation: Adults
  • Look up Aged Out on WorldCat to find it at a library near you!

Show Them You’re Good

~ rachelbenzine ~ Leave a comment

Plot:

Show Them You’re Good explores senior year of high school for several different boys in Los Angeles. They are from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, attend two different high schools, and come from different levels of privilege, but they share the common journey of applying to college and preparing for life after high school. We see not only college applications, but the real life issues these kids face – immigration, sick parents, stable and unstable home environments, parental illness, relationships with girlfriends, relationships with each other. 

What I Loved Most:

This is a beautiful, quiet work. It is a meditation on a single year in these boys’ lives. This book is not only a reflection on the American journey of collegiate education, but also asks the reader to consider the similarities and differences between the boys’ journeys. The end of high school and beginning of college is such a weird year, fraught with both so much excitement about the future and so much nostalgia for the moment before it even passes. Hobbs does a great job of both showcasing the boys’ individual stories, and looking at the larger issues that impact them, like the political system, the college system, and how one finds their identity in a culture that places expectations on them from the moment they are born.

Read this book if you like:

Learning people’s stories, appreciating both differences and commonalities, reflection

Book Details:

American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment

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Review:

Shane Bauer wanted to learn more about the experiences of prisoners in the United States, but he knew that as a journalist, he would face many barriers to getting the real story from people currently in prison. As such, he decided to go undercover at a private prison in Winnfield, Louisiana as a prison guard. American Prison is part memoir of Bauer’s time as a guard, and part chronicle of the history of U.S. prisons. He does a great job of balancing out his experiences while also sharing the larger context of how we’ve done imprisonment in America throughout our country’s history.

Maybe y’all already knew that for-profit prisons are a thing, but I straight up had no idea that this was a concept until I read this book. I have heard many arguments for privatizing major sectors of governmental service, and this book explores the positive and negative implications of privatization of prison services. Absolutely fascinating, and worth the read.

Favorite Passage:

The United States imprisons a higher portion of its population than any country in the world. In 2017 we had 2.2 million people in prisons and jails, a 500 percent increase over the last forty years. We now have almost 5 percent of the world’s population and nearly a quarter of its prisoners.

What I Loved Most:

Bauer has a unique perspective on prison. As a journalist, he was actually captured and put in prison in Iran for more than two years. It’s fascinating to listen to him reflect on his own experience as a prisoner, and reconcile it with his role of prison guard in America. My undergraduate degree is in Psychology, and I loved hearing his clear cognitive dissonance about the experience – he understood what it was like to have your freedoms stripped from you, but still engaged in regulatory behavior while rationalizing it away. Even though Bauer doesn’t directly point it out, there’s lots of fun psychology and sociology theory and application in this book.

Read this book if you like:

Prison, sociology, undercover exposés, memoirs, history

Book Details: