Abstract
Researchers have demonstrated that legislators did not explicitly recognize mothers’ parenting as an important citizenship duty in the 1994–1996 welfare reform debate. Despite this, some supportive parenting programs emerged from the debate, such as expanded child care. This study examined how legislators successfully supported some assistive programs within a predominantly punitive political discourse. Did legislators rather imply the citizenship value of mothering through allusions to rights and duties of citizenship? A critical discourse analysis of the entire welfare reform debate was conducted to determine if parenting as an important citizenship activity was implied by legislators through allusions to rights and obligations. All 66 relevant welfare reform debates and hearings of 1994–1996 were analyzed using a combination of grounded theory methods and content analysis within a critical discourse analysis framework. Legislators’ articulations of rights and benefits related to parenting were often favorable. Themes included that the government should support parenting, parenting is an important activity, and that no behavioral obligations should be placed upon parents to receive benefits. Including all themes, favorable parenting discourse was nearly 50%. However, legislators also used implicit citizenship messaging to diminish value and importance of parenting with themes related to gender order, parenting as non-work, and poor mothers’ parenting as dangerous. In the discourse, legislators overtly endorsed the personal responsibility ideology while often tacitly supporting poor mothers. The authors caution politically liberal legislators to carefully weigh policy gains won through implicit discourse against the overall costs to poor mothers’ citizenship construction.
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Toft, J., Lightfoot, E. Speaking of Rights and Duties: Implying Mothers’ Citizenship in the US Congressional Welfare Reform Debate. J of Pol Practice & Research 1, 178–194 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42972-020-00019-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42972-020-00019-6