Shut Out, livre ebook

Documents the economic, educational, and existential struggles that single mothers in poverty confront in the current welfare climate.

Documents the economic, educational, and existential struggles that single mothers in poverty confront in the current welfare climate.

Shut Out portrays in vivid detail the economic, educational, and existential struggles that single mothers confront as they fight back against a welfare-to-work regime that denies them access to higher education and obstructs their aspirations as autonomous women, determined to exit poverty and attain family self-sufficiency. The book is a unique blend of policy analysis and lived realities. The voices of student mothers fighting to stay in school, and organizing for a different future, are embedded in an analysis grounded in the educational experiences of women in poverty across the states. Harsh and punitive public policies that are designed to keep poor women trapped in low wage work are juxtaposed against the actions of those who, together with their allies, have resisted-inspired by a vision of a different world made possible by higher education.

Contributing authors discuss the provisions of the 1996 "welfare reform" (PRWORA) Act and the myriad of statewide responses to educational options within the framework of national legislation. In documenting the multiple obstacles and policy restrictions that low income women face, the book also highlights successful state programs, institutional practices, and community-based programs that afford low income women educational opportunities. The afterword summarizes recent legislative developments and makes policy and advocacy recommendations for the future.

Introduction
Peggy Kahn, Sandra S. Butler, Luisa Stormer Deprez, and Valerie Polakow

1. Debunking the Myth of the Failure of Education and Training for Welfare Recipients: A Critique of the Research
Erika Kates

2. Failing Low Income Students: Education and Training in the Age of Welfare Reform
Lizzy Ratner

3. "That's Not How I Want to Live": Student Mothers Fight to Stay in School under Michigan's Welfare-to-Work Regime
Peggy Kahn and Valerie Polakow

4. Connecting and Reconnecting to Work: Low Income Mothers' Participation in Publicly Funded Training Programs
Frances J. Riemer

5. Supporting or Blocking Educational Progress? The Impact of College Policies, Programs, and Practices on Low Income Single Mothers
Sally Sharp

6. Student Financial Aid and Low Income Mothers
Donald E. Heller and Stefani A. Bjorklund
7. Credentials Count: How California's Community Colleges Help Parents Move from Welfare to Self-Sufficiency
Anita K. Mathur with Judy Reichle, Julie Strawn, and Chuck Wiseley

8. "This Little Light of Mine": Parent Activists Struggling for Access to Post-Secondary Education in Appalachian Kentucky
Christiana Miewald

9. College Access and Leadership-Building for Low Income Women: Boston's Women in Community Development (WICD)
Deborah Clarke and Lynn Peterson

10. Transcending Welfare: Creating a GI Bill for Working Families
Julie L. Watts and Aiko Schaefer

11. Securing Higher Education for Women on Welfare in Maine
Luisa Stormer Deprez, Sandra S. Butler, and Rebekah J. Smith

Afterword
The Editors
List of Contributors
Index