Includes bibliographical references (pages 195-209) and index.
Contents:
The "orphan trains": then and now -- Moving toward a racialized child welfare system -- Parents with disabilities -- Foster youth -- Foster parents -- Juvenile "justice" -- Toiling inside the bureaucracy -- The future of child welfare -- Real reform -- Child welfare and social reproduction -- Socialism and the parent-child relationship -- Appendix: From rights to reality: a plan for parent advocacy and family-centered child welfare reform.
Summary:
Analyzes the history of the U.S. child welfare system and its implications today, offering ideas for reform and building solidarity. Lash looks at the history and politics of the US child welfare system, exposing the system in its totality, from child protective investigation to foster care and mandated services, arguing that it constitutes a mechanism of control exerted over poor and working class parents and children. Applying the Marxist framework of social reproduction theory to the child welfare system, the author reveals the system's role in the regulation of family life under capitalism. --Adapted from publisher description
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.