Laboring to learn
Subtitle: women's literacy and poverty in the post-welfare era
By: Lorna Rivera.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Urbana
Language: eng
Number of pages: 176
ISBN-13: 9780252033513; 9780252075551
Subjects: Women -- Education -- United States; Welfare recipients -- Education -- United States; Educational equalization -- Education -- United States; Literacy -- United States
Description: Analyzing the web of ideological contradictions regarding "work first" welfare reform policies, Rivera argues that poverty is produced and reproduced when women with low literacy skills are pushed into welfare-to-work programs and denied education. She examines how various discourses about individual choice and self-sufficiency shape the purposes of literacy, how low-income women express a sense of personal responsibility for being poor, and how neoliberal ideologies and practices compromise the goals of critical literacy programs. Throughout this study, the voices and experiences of formerly homeless women challenge cultural stereotypes about poor women, showing in personal and structural terms how social and economic forces shape and restrict opportunities for low-income women of color. From publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Framing the blame and gain; title: Hope on Magnolia Street; title: Mothering in the war years; title: Around the round table; title: Women of strength; title: Laboring to learn, learning to labor; title: Epilogue : an unfinished conversation.