Race, Gender, and Welfare Reform: The Elusive Quest for Self-Determination

by Vanessa Sheared

This study examines how welfare reform has affected African Americans, particularly women. It analyzes the discourse of marginalization within the 1988 Title II-Job Opportunities for Basic Skills (JOBS) legislation and its impact on African American women. An Afrocentric feminist epistemology is used to explore major issues surrounding the JOBS program within the context of the history of welfare reform laws and the experiences of African Americans with the welfare system. The author discusses how the experiences and viewpoints of welfare recipients, educators, welfare workers, and administrators reflect the inequities of the welfare system and the welfare reform movement. This study of the design and implementation of the JOBS plan reveals that welfare reform that does not provide equitable wages and education will not change the lives of these women.
(Ph.D. dissertation, University of Northern Illinois, 1992; revised with new preface, foreword, afterword)

Hardcover

First published October 1, 1998