Parental incarceration has negative effects on children’s educational outcomes. Past studies have only analyzed, and therefore only treated as consequential, parental incarceration that occurs during childhood rather than prenatally. Such analyses that emphasize the importance only of events that occur during one’s lifetime are common in life course studies. This paper introduces an “entwined life events” perspective, which argues that certain events are so consequential to multiple persons’ lives that they should be analyzed as events within multiple independent life courses; parental incarceration, whenever it occurs, is entwined across and shapes both parents’ and children’s lives. Drawing on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we find that parental incarceration, both prenatal and during childhood, significantly influences children’s academic ability measures and years of completed schooling. Our results show heterogeneous effects by children’s race. We find that the absolute magnitude of parental incarceration effect estimates is largest for White children relative to estimates for Black and Hispanic children. At the same time, outcome levels tend to be poorer for Black and Hispanic children with parental incarceration experience. We explain this racial heterogeneity as confounded by the many other social disadvantages that non-White children encounter, resulting in the individual effect of parental incarceration not being extremely disruptive to their academic growth.

父母监禁对孩子的教育成果有负面影响。过去的研究只分析了发生在儿童时期而不是产前的父母监禁，因此只将其视为后果性的父母监禁。这种只强调一个人一生中发生的事件的重要性的分析在生命历程研究中很常见。本文介绍了一种“纠缠在一起的生活事件”的观点，认为某些事件对多人的生活影响如此之大，以至于它们应该作为多个独立生命过程中的事件进行分析；父母监禁，无论何时发生，都交织在一起，影响着父母和孩子的生活。根据收入动态面板研究和脆弱家庭与儿童福祉研究的数据，我们发现父母监禁，无论是在产前还是在儿童时期，都会显着影响儿童的学业能力指标和完成学业的年限。我们的结果显示儿童种族的异质性影响。我们发现，相对于黑人和西班牙裔儿童的估计值，白人儿童的父母监禁效应估计值的绝对幅度最大。与此同时，有父母监禁经历的黑人和西班牙裔儿童的结果水平往往较差。我们将这种种族异质性解释为被非白人儿童遇到的许多其他社会劣势所混淆，导致父母监禁的个人影响不会对他们的学业发展造成极大破坏。我们的结果显示儿童种族的异质性影响。我们发现，相对于黑人和西班牙裔儿童的估计值，白人儿童的父母监禁效应估计值的绝对幅度最大。与此同时，有父母监禁经历的黑人和西班牙裔儿童的结果水平往往较差。我们将这种种族异质性解释为被非白人儿童遇到的许多其他社会劣势所混淆，导致父母监禁的个人影响不会对他们的学业发展造成极大破坏。我们的结果显示儿童种族的异质性影响。我们发现，相对于黑人和西班牙裔儿童的估计值，白人儿童的父母监禁效应估计值的绝对幅度最大。与此同时，有父母监禁经历的黑人和西班牙裔儿童的结果水平往往较差。我们将这种种族异质性解释为被非白人儿童遇到的许多其他社会劣势所混淆，导致父母监禁的个人影响不会对他们的学业发展造成极大破坏。有父母监禁经历的黑人和西班牙裔儿童的结果水平往往较差。我们将这种种族异质性解释为被非白人儿童遇到的许多其他社会劣势所混淆，导致父母监禁的个人影响不会对他们的学业发展造成极大破坏。有父母监禁经历的黑人和西班牙裔儿童的结果水平往往较差。我们将这种种族异质性解释为被非白人儿童遇到的许多其他社会劣势所混淆，导致父母监禁的个人影响不会对他们的学业发展造成极大破坏。