Courses
Current Teaching
Poor Law to the Working Poor
From “warning off paupers” to welfare reform and unsustainable wages, this course offers an overview of American
attitudes and public policies toward poor/low-income people and their children from colonial to contemporary
society. The course examines race, gender, and citizenship versus “stranger” status in patterns of American
inequality and policy responses.
Research at the Margins: Field Research Methods
This advanced methods course takes graduate students through the process of formulating research question/design,
choosing methods, doing field research, analyzing qualitative and mixed-method data, and composing results. With a
focus on conducting research in socioeconomic conditions of inequality, we discuss collaborative research design,
creative methods of data gathering, and interpretive approaches that include people “under study.”
Carework and Inequality
What is carework? Is it work, family duty or a public good? And what does love have to do with carework? This
course examines historical patterns and social forces that circumscribe caring labor and traces carework as a
form of reproductive labor, primarily provided by women and girls. We then explore the “commodification” of care
or carework for hire and the development of a global class of careworkers, largely low-income women of color.
Women, Families and Survival Strategies: Race, Class and Gender
This course examines the work and family nexus with a focus on how mothers manage to negotiate the labor market
and also their ongoing role as primary – or sole – family care takers. Race, class, ethnic/immigration and gender
issues are integrated throughout, drawing out the profound stratification of resources to which parents have access,
trying to keep families safe and intact.
Sc 799 Research Practicum
This advanced field research course functions as an opportunity for a small group of graduate students, who are
ready to pursue a specific research question or study, to work together and discuss theoretical and practical
research issues as well as receive individual field research guidance.
