A Critical Discourse Analysis of Welfare-to-Work Program Managers’ Expectations and Evaluations of Their Clients’ Mothering

Turgeon, Brianna

doi:10.1177/0896920516654555

Cited by 11 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…To analyze the qualitative data (policy documents and interviews), we used CDA (Bacchi, 2009;Keller, 2011;Turgeon, 2018;van Dijk, 1993) to uncover different equity or equality discourses and practices. CDA-different to other forms of discourse analysis-is used in order to understand potential consequences of both linguistic and social practices in the (re-)production of power-structures and inequities.…”

Section: Methodology Of Cdamentioning

confidence: 99%

Equity versus equality: Discourses and practices within decentralized welfare‐to‐work programs in California

et al. 2020

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The U.S. welfare reform of 1996 brought about highly decentralized Welfare-to-Work (WTW) programs, granting discretion to states and local governments to implement policies. Previous research has emphasized racial disparities in WTW sanction rates, by focusing on state/county characteristics or frontline-workers' biases. There is a dearth of research focusing on different understandings of equity or equality and corresponding practices embedded within WTW programs at the state and local levels. This knowledge is important to better understand how race disparities in WTW may be shaped. Our case is California's comparatively generous and highly devolved WTW program and its implementation in two most different counties. Descriptive analysis of administrative data reveals racial disparities in WTW sanctions and exemptions at the state-level and contrasting racial disparity patterns across two counties. Drawing on an equity framework, critical discourse analysis (CDA) of policy documents and interviews at the state level reveals conflicting discourses and practices around equity and equality, leaving room for interpretation at local agencies. CDA of county-level documents and interviews with county administrators showcases contrasting discourses and practices: while one county operates on an equality discourse that does not challenge existing disparities, the other county adopts an equity-related discourse of providing

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Section: Methodology Of Cdamentioning

confidence: 99%

Equity versus equality: Discourses and practices within decentralized welfare‐to‐work programs in California

et al. 2020

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“…Poor women, especially poor women of color, suffer punitive consequences for deviating from intensive mothering expectations due to how gendered and racialized economic constraints limit their ability to provide and compel their participation in public assistance programs (Collins and Mayer 2010;Hays 2003;Roberts 2002). Welfare aid policies provide too little for mothers to meet normative criteria for "good" motherhood and place little value on the unpaid care labor consistent with ideas of intensive parenting (Turgeon 2018). The racialized controlling image of the "welfare queen" has contributed to further retrenchment of the U.S. social safety net for poor mother-headed families in recent decades (Collins 2000;Roberts 1997).…”

Section: Mothering Ideologies Intersecting With Gender Class and Ramentioning

confidence: 99%

“Willing to Do Anything for My Kids”: Inventive Mothering, Diapers, and the Inequalities of Carework

Randles

2020

Am Sociol Rev

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Prior research highlights how mothers across social classes express similar beliefs that good parenting adheres to the tenets of intensive mothering by being child-centered, time-consuming, and self-sacrificing. Yet intensive mothering ideologies emphasize parenting tactics that assume children’s basic needs are met, while ignoring how mothers in poverty devise distinctive childrearing strategies and logics to perform carework demanded by deprivation, discrimination, and a meager social safety net. I theorize inventive mothering that instead highlights the complexity and agency of poor mothers’ innovative efforts to ensure children’s access to resources, protect children from the harms of poverty and racism, and present themselves as fit parents in the context of intersecting gender, class, and race stigma. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 70 mothers who experienced diaper need, I conceptualize diaper work as a case of inventive mothering that involves extensive physical, cognitive, and emotional labor. These findings show how focusing on childrearing practices experienced as “intense” from the point of view of more affluent, white mothers perpetuates inequalities by obscuring the complex labor poor mothers, especially poor mothers of color, perform when there is limited public support for fundamental aspects of childcare.

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“…older people or people with disabilities) as full citizens. Another strand of this literature has examined how discourses of poverty and welfare translate into governing mentalities for frontline workers, who implement policies on the ground and are in relations with people in poverty (Houser et al, 2015;Suvarierol, 2015;Taylor et al, 2018;Turgeon, 2018;Woolford and Curran, 2013). For example, Houser and her colleagues (2015) show how caseworkers in the US enact barriers discourse in ways that individualise the structural conditions that their low-income clients confront.…”

Section: The Neoliberal Subject As An Entrepreneur Of Herselfmentioning

confidence: 99%

Entrepreneurs of Themselves: How Poor Women Enact Asset-Building Discourse

Feldman

Schram

2018

J. Soc. Pol.

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Welfare policy discourse plays an important role in shaping how marginalised groups are identified and how poverty is addressed. Research on welfare policy discourse has mostly adopted a top-down perspective, examining how marginalised groups are constituted through interrelated discourses that are produced and enacted by powerful actors. However, little attention has been given to understanding how welfare policy discourse is used and enacted by marginalised groups themselves. This article focuses on asset-building discourse, a newly ascendant discourse which suggests that poverty can be alleviated through savings and building wealth. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 24 poor single mothers of colour participating in a matched savings programme, the article explores how poor women rely on asset-building discourse to make sense of their poverty challenges and how to overcome them. The study finds that the women express neoliberal ideals as they seek to portray themselves as committed to becoming self-sufficient, financially literate, disciplined savers and entrepreneurs. The findings indicate that the women feel empowered and see themselves as worthy citizens, irrespective of whether their economic situation has actually improved or whether they ultimately come to resist asset-building discourse's individualisation of their predicament.

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A Critical Discourse Analysis of Welfare-to-Work Program Managers’ Expectations and Evaluations of Their Clients’ Mothering

Cited by 11 publications

References 22 publications

Equity versus equality: Discourses and practices within decentralized welfare‐to‐work programs in California

Equity versus equality: Discourses and practices within decentralized welfare‐to‐work programs in California

“Willing to Do Anything for My Kids”: Inventive Mothering, Diapers, and the Inequalities of Carework

Entrepreneurs of Themselves: How Poor Women Enact Asset-Building Discourse

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