'My Education Means Everything to Me': CalWORKs Mothers' Rationales for Pursuing Higher Education.

SAN Francisco Bay Area (Calif.); CALIFORNIA; UNITED States

Sweeping changes in 1996 to the U.S. national welfare system prioritized "work first" policies and restricted educational opportunities for mothers on welfare. Even though most other aspects of American culture values higher education and recognizes the necessity of education for upward mobility, this opportunity is not available to mothers on welfare. Despite a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" discourse, the TANF program is designed to devalue and severely limit higher educational opportunities for mothers on welfare. Despite the strict regulations and time limitations imposed, mothers do pursue higher education while on welfare as a route out of poverty. My research focuses on the narratives of welfare mothers pursuing higher education while in the CalWORKs, California's welfare system. I conducted this research in the San Francisco Bay Area from November 2005 through June 2007 through qualitative interviews and focus groups with 64 women receiving CalWORKs. This paper explores the women's motivations and rationales for pursuing higher education and finds that they are the same as those present in the current cultural explanations implicit to the American Dream and the importance of education for that dream. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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