Literacy as rehabilitation in youth custodial settings: integrating education, cognition and desistance.

内容摘要

This paper aims to examine how structured literacy education in youth custodial settings may function as a rehabilitative process supporting cognitive engagement, identity development and future-oriented thinking among justice-involved young people. Literacy education is widely recognized as a core component of youth custodial programming, yet its contribution to rehabilitation and psychosocial well-being remains under-theorized within prison health and education research. The paper introduces the literacy-desistance integration model (LDIM) as a practice-informed conceptual framework that positions literacy learning as an integrative practice linking educational engagement with developmental and desistance-oriented mechanisms relevant to rehabilitation, reentry and the well-being of incarcerated youth. The study adopts a conceptually oriented qualitative design. Empirical material comprises 22 semi-structured interviews with justice-involved youth aged 14-18 enrolled in literacy-related educational activities within a single youth custodial institution in Abu Dhabi, alongside a documentary review of institutional educational materials. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006, 2019, 2022) following a six-phase iterative process. The empirical material was generated under the author's prior regulatory oversight role and serves an illustrative and generative function in the development of the LDIM, which is the primary scholarly contribution. The analysis identified three interrelated domains through which literacy learning may operate as a rehabilitative practice: literacy as a site of cognitive engagement supporting sustained attention and reflective thinking; literacy as a space for identity exploration and narrative reconstruction; and literacy learning as a bridge to future orientation and reentry readiness. These domains correspond to the three layers of the LDIM. Negative cases qualify the model, indicating that literacy's rehabilitative potential is contingent on supportive instructional conditions, age-appropriate materials, educator mediation and structural conditions on reentry that participants could not fully control. The empirical material derives from a single youth custodial education setting in one Emirate and is illustrative rather than generalizable. It was generated through the author's prior regulatory oversight role rather than a prospectively designed research protocol; this boundary is addressed transparently in the ethics and limitations sections, and the paper is positioned as a practice-informed conceptual contribution rather than an evaluative empirical study. The LDIM is offered as a conceptual framework inviting empirical testing through longitudinal, multi-site and mixed-methods research that examines its mechanisms and applicability across diverse custodial contexts and populations. The LDIM offers prison educators a framework for designing literacy instruction that supports cognitive engagement, identity work and reentry readiness alongside skill acquisition, rather than treating these as separate goals. For administrators, the model provides a basis for aligning literacy programming with rehabilitative aims and educator professional development. For policymakers, it supports integration of education into rehabilitation strategies without prescribing specific curricula. Within the UAE, the model aligns with the federal framework governing juvenile justice (Federal Laws 9/1976, 43/1992, 3/2016 and 6/2022) and can inform program review, educator training and inter-agency coordination. Reframing literacy education as a health-enabling and rehabilitative practice rather than a remedial intervention may strengthen the role of education in supporting the psychosocial well-being and reentry trajectories of justice-involved youth. The LDIM contributes to the wider effort within prison health and education research to recognize education as a social determinant of health and rehabilitation, with particular relevance to under-researched contexts, including the United Arab Emirates and the wider Gulf region, where youth custodial education systems are evolving within broader child rights and rehabilitation frameworks. The paper offers an original conceptual contribution by introducing the LDIM, which connects literature on prison education, educational psychology and desistance research that have largely operated in parallel. It distinguishes itself from neighboring frameworks (narrative criminology, transformative learning theory) by specifying the instructional practices through which cognitive engagement, identity reconstruction and future-oriented agency may unfold in youth custody. The paper also extends prison education scholarship into an under-researched regional context, the United Arab Emirates, while remaining adaptable to diverse cultural, linguistic and institutional settings.