Luisa Deprez
Office
Office Hours Fall 2013
On SabbaticalContact Information
My life as an academic has not followed a traditional path. Prior to coming to USM, I was a well-established expert on child mental health in Maine and the New England region, and had served a four year term in state government as the Director of Children’s Mental Health Services. My work involved taking responsibility for closing the Children’s Psychiatric Hospital at Pineland, the state’s only psychiatric hospital for children, as well as leading the development of the first comprehensive state-wide system of care for children in need of mental health services.
I arrived at USM in 1976, as a faculty member in the School of Social Work, and in 2002 moved to the Department of Sociology. I am also a faculty member in the Women and Gender Studies Program, where I served as Director for three years from 1999 to 2002. From 2002 to 2005, I served a three year term as Interim Dean of USM’s College of Arts and Sciences.
In addition, I was invited to be the first joint Visiting Scholar at the Center for Social Policy and the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at UMass Boston for the 2005 – 2006 academic year, a position similar to one I held in 1998, when I was a Visiting Research Scholar at the Wellesley College Center for Women, Center for Research on Women. In 1995 I held the position of Academic Visitor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.
Degree-wise, I hold a B.A in Sociology from Keuka College, an M.S.W. in Community Organization from Rutgers University, and a Ph.D. in Social Policy from the Heller School for Public Policy and Management, Brandeis University.
Research Interests
My 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.
Recent Publications
"The Capability Approach and Education" with Diane Wood. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Special Edition, forthcoming 2012.
"Back from the Brink: Unemployed Women in Maine Get a Second Chance" in a Special Edition of the Journal of Women, Politics and Policy on "Women and Workforce Development" with Sandy Butler, forthcoming 2012.
“The Declining Significance of Race – Revisited” (Edited with Richard Caputo, Yeshiva University). Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, forthcoming 2012.
Investing in Human Capital in Difficult Economic Times: Maine’s Competitive Skills Scholarship Program (with Sandra Butler, John Dorrer, Auta Main). Maine Policy Review, Orono: Margaret Chase Smith Center, University of Maine, March 2010.
Re-Imagining Possibilities for Democratic Education: Generative Pedagogies in Service to the Capability Approach (with Diane Wood). In Higher Education and the Capability Approach, Michael Watts, ed. Symposium Press (forthcoming 2011).
Colliding Identities, Collaborative Feminism: Within and Beyond the Classroom (with Emily A. Paine). In And Finally We Meet: Intersections and Intersectionality Among Feminist Activists, Academics and Students, Alice Ginsberg and Karen Bojar, eds. Towson University (NC) National Center for Curriculum Transformation Resources on Women, 2010.
Women, Welfare and Workforce Development: An Agenda for the 21st Century (with Mary Gatta). In Transforming the U.S. Workforce Development System: Lessons from Research and Practice, David Finegold, Mary Gatta, Hal Saltzman, Susan Schurman, eds. A Labor and Employment Relations Association Research Volume. Cornell University Press, 2010.
USM Social Dashboard »
Check out our new Social Dashboard to see other ways to stay connected across the USM community.