Affiliation:
1. Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice University of Chicago Chicago Illinois USA
2. School of Human Ecology and La Follette School of Public Affairs University of Wisconsin Madison Wisconsin USA
3. Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work University of Wisconsin Madison Wisconsin USA
Abstract
AbstractPolicy feedback scholars argue that experiences with government shape political participation. Administrative burden scholars posit that burdensome bureaucratic encounters deter political participation. Related quantitative studies take a top‐down, deductive approach and test effects of single policies, yet people engage multiple programs, and all policies may not be equally salient in how they view the state. Using qualitative interviews, our inductive, “bottom‐up” approach examines the most prominent policy domains in views of government shared across mothers with low incomes in the United States (n = 80). Mothers experienced a wide range of policies, and they detailed related administrative burdens, but this was not the focus in most of their views of the government. Many raised issue areas that hit close to home, such as affordable child care or children's recreation programs. They often drew on a sense of collective motherhood in their view of government, including how it could facilitate efforts to raise children.
Subject
Sociology and Political Science