Women in the American welfare trap / Catherine Pélissier Kingfisher.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kingfisher, Catherine Pélissier.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Poor women--United States.

Poor women.

Welfare recipients--United States.

Welfare recipients.

Human services personnel--United States.

Human services personnel.

Public welfare--United States.

Public welfare.

Aid to families with dependent children programs--United States.

Aid to families with dependent children programs.

Welfare rights movement--United States.

Welfare rights movement.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (217 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c1996.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In the United States, a majority of the poor and those who work with the poor are women. Recipients of public assistance and the welfare workers who serve them are both trapped at the bottom of the American welfare system. How do they perceive their place in society? How do they assess their self-worth in the hierarchy of a bureaucratic system? In this ethnographic study of a welfare office and two welfare rights groups, Catherine Pelissier Kingfisher addresses these issues in a thought-provoking analysis, based on the women's conversations with each other. Women in the American Welfare Trap addresses a range of significant issues: policy formation and implementation, the role of men in women's economic lives, low-income women's beliefs and aspirations, and the possibilities for women cooperatively working to change the welfare system. Indeed, Kingfisher demonstrates that women who are often viewed as victims without control actively work within the confines of the system to exert their autonomy.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Producing the World in Everyday Talk

Chapter 2. The Welfare Trap I: Recipients

Chapter 3. A Tenuous Advocacy

Chapter 4. "Us"

Chapter 5. "Them"

Chapter 6. The Welfare Trap II: Workers

Chapter 7. Good and (Mostly) Bad Clients

Chapter 8. Further Productions: Attitudes and Policy

Chapter 9. Trapped as They Are

Chapter 10. Conclusions

Appendix A: Transcripts

Appendix B

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [195]-201) and index.

ISBN:

1-283-89021-6

0-8122-0246-5

0-585-12008-0

OCLC:

44965512