Making sense of the puzzle: The intergenerational implications of educating welfare mothers.

Abstract

The debate concerning the value of postsecondary education for welfare recipients has received increased attention within academic and policy circles. Although many studies corroborate that postsecondary education provides an important avenue for recipients to achieve long-term self-sufficiency, recent changes in social policy have all but eliminated the postsecondary opportunities available for those on public assistance. The purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to this debate by exploring one important piece of the puzzle, namely the intergenerational implications of educating welfare mothers. A qualitative multi-case research approach is used, with the unit of analysis being the family for it is the principal channel of transmission of culture, values, aspirations, and resources between generations. Five families are portrayed in the study, and although each has a different story to tell, all share the fact that the mothers used postsecondary education as a vehicle to escape poverty. Research findings indicate that maternal postsecondary education influenced the economic and non-economic attainment of the next generation essentially via two mechanisms, resource and socialization. The resource mechanism suggests that postsecondary education improved the mothers' employment opportunities and earnings, which in turn increased the resources available in the home. These were not only material resources, such as food, shelter, and books, but also included intellectual and emotional resources that resulted from the mothers' own acquisition of skills and knowledge. The socialization mechanism suggests that the postsecondary experience exposed and acculturated the mothers to the behaviors, attitudes, and values of the dominant middle-class. The mothers then internalized those cultural categories and transmitted them to the children, shaping how the families came to define success and future expectations. Despite the positive impact of postsecondary education on parenting behavior and the ultimate attainment of the children, presenting these stories only in terms of success would undermine the struggles and barriers these families had to face in their journey out of poverty. The dissertation explores these barriers and discusses the price the families had to pay in order to achieve upward intergenerational mobility.