Dr Tia McPherson's Qualifications (4)

Pedagogy and German Language and Literature
BA

Status	Complete
Part Time	No
Years	2008 - 2012
Awarding Institution	University of Zagreb

Anthropology and Pedagogy
MA

Status	Complete
Part Time	No
Years	2012 - 2015
Project Title	Youth entertainment in Croatia: Behind the scenes of summer music festivals
Awarding Institution	University of Zagreb

Criminal Justice
MSc

Status	Complete
Part Time	No
Years	2015 - 2017
Project Title	Can Detention Reduce Recidivism of Youth? An outcome evaluation of a juvenile detention center
Awarding Institution	North Dakota State University

Criminology
PhD / DPhil

Status	Complete
Part Time	No
Years	2017 - 2021
Project Title	Bereavement and imprisonment: a descriptive phenomenological exploration of prisoners’ experiences of bereavement in carceral contexts
Project Description	This study explores prisoners’ experiences of bereavement and the impact of carceral contexts on manifestations and processing of grief. Despite prior research indicating a higher prevalence of bereavement among justice-involved individuals and its potential links with reoffending, both grieving in prisons and the impact of carceral contexts on bereavement remain under-studied. To this end, the researcher conducted 33 semi-structured, voice-recorded interviews with male and female prisoners in two Scottish prisons to capture rich, nuanced narratives of prisoners’ experiences of bereavement. Following Giorgi’s (2000) Descriptive Phenomenological (DP) framework for analysis, the findings discovered that bereavement in carceral contexts simultaneously embodied various, often competing levels of its temporal, spatial, and corporeal manifestations, leaving some prisoners trapped in this liminality, this ambiguity of being neither here nor there. Consequently, the policy and practice implications from this study are relevant not just for the duration of individuals’ imprisonment but for release and reintegration too.
Awarding Institution	University of Strathclyde