Oppressive Contexts: How Placement Communities Affect Adolescent Experiences of Neighborhood Belongingness during Foster Care

Background and Purpose: Little is known about how foster placement neighborhoods might facilitate a sense of belonging, potentially ameliorating detrimental effects of displacement on youths’ social support networks. Using a cultural ecological framework to articulate how systems interact with adolescents’ developmental ecologies (e.g., the Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory), this research explored whether, and how, community-level and ecological factors contribute to youths’ sense of belonging to their placement neighborhoods during care.

Methods: Using a mixed method, three-phased sequential explanatory design, this study explored the relationship between community-level ethnic and racial composition and belongingness among young adults with lived adolescent experience in foster care. In a first quantitative phase a national, retrospective survey tested associations between community context and other ecological factors on neighborhood belongingness using logistic regression methods (n=118). Results were then used to inform the sampling and substantive focus of a second qualitative phase. A maximum variation nested sample of participants with high and low ratings of neighborhood belongingness (n=22) were interviewed to explore the meaningfulness of ecological constructs (e.g., caregiver dynamics, neighborhood context) to narratives of belongingness. A third integration phase involved using joint displays to systematically merge results from the previous phases producing meta-inferences helping us learn more about what differentiates those who felt strongly connected to placement neighborhoods compared to those who did not.

Results: Logistic regression indicated that the concentration of white residents within placement neighborhoods increased the odds of a moderate/strong sense of inclusion in one’s placement neighborhood as did ecological factors (i.e., how connected young people felt to caregivers, the meaningfulness of their engagement in age-appropriate activities, and the racial and ethnic match between them and caregivers). Qualitative themes and meta-inferences add much needed context, explaining complex relationships between community ethnic/racial composition and belongingness that caution against a simplistic interpretation of whiteness’ role to belongingness within this sample. For example, qualitative themes highlight how youths’ perceptions of neighborhood sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., ideologies, religiosity, racial/ethnic composition) could normalize and alienate them. Meta-inferences suggest young adults who were placed in geographic communities where they felt systemic oppressions (e.g., racism, homophobia) rated neighborhood belongingness low and less often indicated having supportive influences during placement. Those who felt a high sense of belonging in neighborhoods referenced community-level acceptance, comfort in neighborhoods, spent more time in them, felt a sense of belonging with caregivers and in other aspects of their lives, and less often identified as holding a marginalized positionality.

Conclusions and Implications: Individuals who hold marginalized social positionalities (e.g., gender non-conforming, individuals racialized as non-white, etc.) may be more vulnerable to a lack of connection when placed in communities that are perceived to be oppressive. The geographic community features that promote belongingness for some can hamper it for others. Foster care placements should facilitate, rather than suppress, youths’ need for safe, autonomous self-expression to promote connection and well-being.