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SOC HOME
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ResearchMy scholarly interests center on the broad arenas of social (welfare) policy including the politics of policy-making; the impact of ideology and public opinion in policy; poverty; women and welfare; and women, welfare and higher education. My publications are almost wholly focused on issues of social policy - the ideology(ies) underlying their development, and the social, economic, and personal impact and consequences of their enactment. As such, I work (as do many social policy analysts) at the intersection of the disciplines of history, political science, economics, and sociology while also extending into the broader arenas of education, social welfare, and law. In addition, I incorporate gender, race, and class into my analysis, observations, and conclusions relying heavily on feminist critique. I consciously use a constructionist approach in my work, understanding that the design of any social policy is determined by how a problem has been defined and the theory of causation ascribed to it. While there is a quantitative element to my work, it is predominantly qualitative. Further, I would consider it political; I hope to expose both the individual and collective consequences of U.S. policies that affect people who are poor, and influence the enactment of new or reformed policies. The work that I have done on the impact of higher education restrictions on poor women has, for example, garnered attention both in others states – among them, Massachusetts, California, Hawaii, Michigan, Pennsylvania - and in the U.S. Congress, especially by Senator Olympia Snowe in her attempts to reform current restrictive welfare policies.My first book, The Family Support Act of 1988: A Case Study of Welfare Reform in the 1980’s, made an important contribution to understanding the politics of policy-making by exploring the relationship between political ideology, public opinion, and social welfare policy. It furthered an understanding of the relationship between public opinion and public policy. Over the past few years, my work has centered almost exclusively on the restrictive nature of welfare policy, particularly as it affects women seeking post-secondary education. The majority of this work has been done in collaboration with Sandra Butler, Professor of Social Work at the University of Maine. The intent of our work has been to evaluate the Parents as Scholars Program in Maine and present the results to local, regional, national, and international audiences. The edited book we published in 2004, Shut Out: Low Income Mothers and Higher Education in Post-Welfare America (SUNY Press) was, for Sandy and I, the culmination of six years work on the issue of welfare imposed restrictions on access to higher education for poor women. The book portrays in vivid detail the economic, educational, and existential struggles that single mothers confront as they fight back against a welfare-to-work regime that denies them access to higher education and obstructs their aspirations as autonomous women, determined to exit poverty and attain family self-sufficiency. It is a unique blend of policy analysis and lived realities; the voices of student mothers fighting to stay in school, and organizing for a different future, are embedded in an analysis grounded in the educational experiences of women in poverty across the states, documenting the confrontation between harsh and punitive public policies that are designed to keep poor women trapped in low wage work, and the actions of those who, together with their allies, have resisted – inspired by a vision of a different world made possible by higher education. |
OFFICE: 120 Bedford Street Portland (207) 780-4763 (207) 780-5698 (fax) deprez@usm.maine.edu MAILING: Department of Sociology University of Southern Maine 96 Falmouth Street P.O. Box 9300 Portland ME 04104-9300
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