pdf - Institute for Policy Research - Northwestern University

B. de Blok
The aim of IFS is to inform policymakers
on how Illinois families have been faring
since the implementation of welfare
reform. The study received funding from
the Department of Education, NICHD,
Administration for Children and Families,
Chicago Community Trust, Joyce
Foundation, John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation, and Polk Bros.
Foundation.
Celeste Watkins-Hayes, assistant
professor of sociology and African
American studies, is completing a book
manuscript, “The Situated Bureaucrat:
Race, Class, and the Changing Terrain
of Human Services.” In it, she explores
how the professional and social
identities of street-level bureaucrats
shape how low-income families receive
welfare services. Against the backdrop
of increasing income inequality, work
requirements for impoverished mothers,
and a restructured social safety net, this
study provides an in-depth look at the
inner workings of a poverty relief agency.
As welfare offices attempt to shift their
organizational model from one of writing
checks and monitoring fraud to an
increasingly professionalized institution,
caseworkers and others advance their
own interpretations of how to transform
their clients, the office, and their work.
For these situated bureaucrats, the politics
of professional roles and racial, class, and
community interests give rise to distinct
interpretations of what “helping the poor”
looks like.
Child Welfare System
With a grant from the Searle Fund for
Policy Research, Dorothy Roberts is
completing research on the communitylevel
effects of the disproportionate
number of African American
children in child welfare systems.
She interviewed 27 black women in
the predominantly black Chicago
neighborhood of Woodlawn, which has
high rates of foster-care placement. The
residents were all aware of intense child
welfare agency involvement in their
neighborhood and identified profound
effects on family and community
relationships, including interference
with parental authority, family conflicts
over placement of children in foster
care, damage to children’s ability to form
social relationships, and distrust among
neighbors. Yet most of the women did not
believe that the Illinois Department of
Children and Family Services was overly
involved in their neighborhood—calling,
in fact, for greater agency involvement to
provide for families’ needs.
Roberts concludes that the residents of
such neighborhoods must increasingly
rely on child protection agencies for
needed financial
assistance because of
the growing dearth of
social programs in these
neighborhoods. She
explores the implications
of these findings for a
new research paradigm
for addressing racial
disproportionality
and to understand the
impact and role of
child welfare agencies
in African American
neighborhoods.
Child Development
Labor economist Raquel Bernal is
interested in the determinants of
children’s cognitive ability. In particular,
she is looking at how mothers’
employment and childcare decisions
affect their children’s cognitive
development. She finds that a child of
a full-time working mother in childcare
during the first five years of life can have
as high as an 8.8 percent reduction in
ability test scores. She also assesses the
impact of policies on women’s decisions
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