Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Cultural Attitudes Toward Child Welfare Policies in the United States

美国人认为国家应该在儿童福利方面为公民提供什么？对种族和贫困的态度如何构成政府在这一领域参与的信念？本项目利用原始调查研究，调查针对低收入母亲的寄养、保育、福利、育儿等影响儿童福利的政策的意见。该项目将通过质疑性别化种族刻板印象的影响，如“福利母亲”的结构，提供新的见解种族态度和态度的交叉点对福利政策。最后，在一个政治上重要但尚未探索的领域制定新的措施和收集新的民意数据本身就很有价值。研究人员将在网上随机抽样调查400名美国人，300名拉丁裔美国人和300名非洲裔美国人。调查提出了关于儿童福利的真实的和假设的政策问题，重点是产前护理，儿童支持和福利。它还包括一个实验操作，在被问到一系列关于福利接受者行为的问题之前，受访者被要求想象一个接受政府援助的穷人，他要么是黑人，要么是白色，要么是拉丁美洲人。数据分析将评估，除其他事项外，是否种族启动影响调查的反应。调查人员假设，种族和阶级确实是中央的政策，关注儿童福利和养育公众的看法。该项目将与研究儿童福利，养育子女，种族态度，性别和/或社会福利政策的跨学科学者小组以及参与这些问题的政治组织和政策制定者有关。调查完成后，研究人员计划在研讨会和会议上向同事介绍这项研究，向相关的政治实践者介绍，并通过社区论坛和媒体曝光向学术界和政界以外的人介绍。简而言之，这项工作将吸引跨学科的学者、政治组织和政治家以及广大美国人的参与。

What do Americans believe the state should provide to its citizens in matters of child welfare? How do attitudes about race and poverty structure beliefs about government involvement in this area? This project uses original survey research to inquire into opinion on policies that influence child welfare, including foster care, childcare, welfare, and parenting policies that are targeted toward low-income mothers. This project will provide new insight into the intersection of racial attitudes and attitudes about welfare policy by interrogating the impact of gendered racial stereotypes, such as the construct of the "welfare mother." Last, developing new measures and gathering new public opinion data in a politically important, yet unexplored, area is valuable in itself. The investigator will survey online a random sample of 400 Americans from the general population, 300 Latino-Americans, and 300 African-Americans. The survey poses questions about real and hypothetical policies concerning child welfare, focusing on prenatal care, child support, and welfare. It also includes an experimental manipulation, in which respondents are primed to imagine a poor recipient of government assistance who is either Black, white, or Latino before they are asked a battery of questions about welfare recipients' behavior. Data analysis will assess, among other things, whether this racial priming impacts survey responses. The investigator hypothesizes that ethnicity and class are indeed central to public perceptions of policies that concern child welfare and parenting. This project will be relevant to the interdisciplinary group of academics who study child welfare, parenting, racial attitudes, gender, and/or social welfare policy, as well as to political organizations and policymakers involved in politics of these issues. When the survey is completed, the researcher plans to present this research to colleagues at workshops and conferences, to relevant political practitioners, and to people outside academia and politics through community forums and media exposure. In short, this work will engage academics across disciplines, political organizations and politicians, and Americans at-large.