Reformed American Dreams

SHEILA M. KATZ is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Houston in Texas. She is a founding board member of the National Center for Student Parent Programs and previously taught at Sonoma State University.

• ContentsAcknowledgmentsList of Abbreviations and AcronymsPreface1          Reforming the American Dream        2          Pathways onto Welfare and into College3          Reformed Grassroots Activism4          Survival through College5          My Education Means Everything to Me6          Hope and Fear during the Great Recession7          Graduating into the Great Recession8          An American Dream for All  AfterwordAppendicesNotesBibliography  Index

"Sheila Katz's study of single women with children on CalWORKS in the San Francisco bay area should be read by those who have stereotyped low-income women in need of assistance, who we often gratuitously denigrate. Katz's interviews demonstrate these women are willing to work and—against all odds (and sometimes the bureaucracy)—seek to advance their fortunes and those of their children by seeking higher education. It is an important, empathic, empowering story." - Robert Hauhart (author of Seeking the American Dream) "The American Dream is betrayed by policies that promotes college for some but not all. In this must-read, Sheila Katz reveals this harsh reality in painstaking detail and, as a scholar-activist, demands that we do something about it.” - Sara Goldrick-Rab (Founding Director of the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice) "Katz chronicles the inspiring 'survival narratives' and grassroots activism of mothers receiving public assistance as they negotiate the many barriers to achieving the American Dream. They offer powerful lessons for remaking it from a materialist and individualist vision to one that nurtures community-building and well-being for all." - Nancy Naples (Author of Grassroots Warriors: Activist Mothering, Community Work, and the War on Poverty) "Recommended." (Choice) Selected New Books on Higher Education compiled by Ki-Jana Deadwyler and Ruth Hammond https://www.chronicle.com/article/Selected-New-Books-on-Higher/246666?key=137mX8P5kNfptPQAJSOgWMNQT5_Zvkgu5NT2iXPiz_vwC1tQHEYfJH7qLUkMonygb0NxU1VfZFRIQU1qYk85Q1lTS0xaLUtnQkloUUZuZTUzOUdjdDlzYkhmRQ (Chronicle of Higher Education) "Well written and well organized and is an approachable read for undergraduate or graduate students in public policy, sociology, poverty, and/or women’s studies. Importantly, the policy recommendations she presents in her book are based on the analysis of the experiences and lives of the single mothers themselves. The American Dream can have meaning beyond economic mobility to include living a fulfilling life through education and time spent with family and community." (Gender & Society) "Katz has illuminated the significance of higher education and the safety net, both of which require progressive reform least they collapse under the weight of a greater depression. We could do worse than learn from student mothers on welfare." (Cercles) "This book demonstrates that mothers on welfare in higher education are pursuing the American Dream, and if policymakers truly want to get these mothers off public assistance, they need to facilitate access to higher education, so they can experience upward mobility into family-supporting jobs." (Work and Occupations)