Luisa S. Deprez

Something Worth Fighting for: Higher Education for Women on Welfare

The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA)r estricted access to postsecondary education for women on welfare. This article discusses the consequences of this aspect of PRWORAand the effect of higher education on women on welfare. The Parents as Scholars (PaS)Pr ogram of Maine—an innovative state program that allows women on welfare to attend college—is described, and data on the experiences of 222 Pas participants are presented. The participants reported increased selfesteem, enhanced opportunities, enriched lives, better relationships with their children, and excitement about their futures.

Teaching for Human Well-being: Curricular Implications for the Capability Approach

Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum state clearly that education is a foundational capacity intrinsically important for human well-being and an enabling capacity for people to live lives they have reason to value. This article explores the resonance the capability approach (CA) has for the authors who, as veteran educators, have drawn their core professional values from democratic, critical, and feminist approaches to pedagogy. The CA provides a critical, generative lens for guiding and assessing curriculum development and pedagogical practices. To aid in their critical reflection and dialogue, the authors developed a heuristic to explore the following question: given contemporary educational challenges, what does the CA have to offer educators who have embraced libratory pedagogical principles? The authors conclude that the CA to education can be a powerful antidote to disturbing and dehumanizing past conditions, present realities, and current trends in education.

The Capability Approach and Women’s Economic Security: Access to Higher Education under Welfare Reform

In modern industrialized nations, the relationship between the two fundamental functions of higher education is both profound and inseparable: for the society, it maintains and transmits culture, values and norms from one generation to another; for the individual, it helps one overcome disadvantage and gain greater control of one’s life. All pathways point to its promise, prospect, and irrefutable importance. And, its importance for women is especially significant as they seek to achieve independence, from both men and the state: education provides them with means to a career, to an escape from patriarchal structures both within and outside the home, to economic, emotional, and familial well-being, and to decision-making over their lives. Education is “the prerequisite for improvement in women’s status” (Tinker 1990, p. 33), and the implications of its worth extend way beyond the immediacy of one’s participation in it.

Back from the Brink: Unemployed Women in Maine Get a Second Chance

In 2008, Maine increased access to postsecondary education and training for unemployed individuals by creating the Competitive Skills Scholarship Program (CSSP) with the twin goals of increasing the pool of skilled individuals for employers and increasing readiness for well-paying jobs for participants. This article reports on a 2009 survey of female CSSP participants, 60 percent of whom had incomes below the poverty line. Thematic analysis of qualitative data revealed three themes: increased confidence, role models for children, and empowered to leave abusive relationships. Women completing the program reported increased earnings and stable family situations. Implications of this innovative program are discussed.

Creating Gender: The Sexual Politics of Welfare Policy

Creating Gender: The Sexual Politics of Welfare Policy. By Cathy Marie Johnson, Georgia Duerst-Lahti, and Noelle H. Norton. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006. 261p.

Shut Out: Low Income Mothers and Higher Education in Post-Welfare America

55.00. Creating Gender compels us to “make ordinary the analysis of gender in policymaking” (p. 228). As such, the authors “take up the question of how gender is created when policy is made” (p. 11) using an intimate and in-depth exploratory analysis of welfare policy in the United States to make their case. Their analysis is based on a “compound gender ideology framework” (p. 228), an original construction of the three authors designed to unravel and reveal gender ideology in the policymaking arena—specifically, the “adoption and implementation of the PRWORA (Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act)—welfare reform” (p. 11).