This book presents insights into how affective educational experiences may be associated with youth criminal behaviour and the pathway to recidivism. It explores the perspectives and lived school experiences of five young adult male prison inmates, including while they were incarcerated as youths. Through these case studies, the book explores the relationship between affective engagement in education and recidivism.

This book shows that participants were affectively disengaged from education prior to their initial incarceration in a youth detention facility, and that their disaffection before, during, and after youth incarceration both generated and impacted on their cognitive and behavioural disengagement from education. Moreover, a range of additional factors not directly causally related to their schooling were shown to have had a significant effect on their engagement in education.

The book considers a number of key findings. First, the foundational role that a sense of belonging plays in how young people experience education and its relation to crime. Second, the importance of individualized transition plans for youth at risk, and youth offenders before, during, and after incarceration. Third, the extent to which successful transition from youth offending and recidivism hinges on interagency collaboration. This book will be beneficial to teacher educators, education researchers, criminologists and sociologists.

Auteur

Cassandra Thoars is a researcher and university lecturer in education ethics, psychology, behaviour management, policies and procedures. She is a teacher with experience in youth justice settings, working with disengaged young people. Her research interests are youth offender education and engagement, policies and legislation concerning conduct and absence, children's rights, and youth detention facility design and operation. Dr David Moltow is Lecturer in Ethics and Professional Practice and Program Director - Postgraduate Teacher Education. As a philosopher, his principal research interests involve the ethical underpinnings of educational policy, curriculum, and teaching practice. Dr Moltow is investigating how the cultivation of the intellectual virtues - as Critical Learning Dispositions - can be realised through curriculum areas such as mathematics, English and the humanities. He is involved in research that examines the ethical relations betweeneducation, engagement, and youth justice, and how jurisprudential thinking can inform policy and practice in relevant settings. ligned with his academic work, Dr Moltow has been retained as a consultant to local, state and federal government agencies to provide advice and educational support in relation to a range of matters concerning critical decision making, policy analysis, ethics and ethical decision making, organisational values, and learning development. He is a member of the Australia and New Zealand Education Law Association, and has been elected Fellow of the Australian Council for Educational Leadership.