Good Parents or Good Workers? How Policy Shapes Families' Daily Lives

Good Parents or Good Workers? draws upon new ethnographic studies and longitudinal interviews that are reporting on the daily lives of women and children under new welfare policy pressures. Contributors look at family policy in the context of daily demands and critique new social programs that are designed to strengthen families. The book is divided into three course-friendly sections that deal with the impact of welfare reform on caregiving, the lived experiences of low-income families, and family policy debates. Good Parents or Good Workers? is an important text on the impacts of welfare reform that will be essential reading in a variety of courses in education, sociology, and politics.

Jill Duerr Berrick is Professor, School of Social Welfare, Faculty Leader, Child Welfare Research Center, and Co-Director, Center for Child and Youth Policy, University of California at Berkeley.

Bruce Fuller is Professor, School of Education, University of California at Berkeley. He co-directs Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE).