Dr. Kerry Woodward’s Research on Race, Gender, & Poverty

Dr. Kerry Woodward recently published her research in Social Politics on race, gender, and the U.S. child welfare system. Dr. Woodward’s article, “Race, Gender, and Poverty Governance: The Case of the U.S. Child Welfare System” argues that the U.S. child welfare system is a primary institution of racialized and gendered poverty governance, operating at the nexus of the assistive and punitive arms of the state. With attention to the ways race and gender structure the child welfare system, she applies the concept of neoliberal paternalism to examine state efforts to reform “bad” parents into “good neoliberal citizen-parents.” The article highlights the increasingly decentralized and privatized child welfare workforce and its effects on governance.