Disciplining the Poor

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This undergraduate course reviews the United States of America's social welfare policy through a racial and gendered lens. To understand the welfare state's relationship to race and gender, we will situate our analysis of the welfare state within a critique of the United States' poverty knowledge production, political economy, and party politics. This course also examines how anti-black, anti-women and anti-welfare ideologies obscure and discredit contemporary welfare rights campaigns. Lastly, this course reviews how welfare reform has impacted different segments of the working class.