UpDate - Vol. 14, No. 25, Page 3
March 23, 1995
Teen mothers; Prof's book examines government programs

     One of the country's current leading concerns is teenage mothers
who are on welfare. How to help these young women enter the
mainstream, care for their children and learn the necessary skills to
become employed and independent is the focus of national debate. A new
book by a University professor provides valuable insights.
     Ruth Horowitz, professor of sociology, has written Teen Mothers:
Citizens or Dependents?, published by the University of Chicago Press.
     The book examines a yearlong, government-sponsored, pilot
program, known as Project GED, with the goal of helping young women
earn their high school equivalency diplomas, learn parenting and life
skills and prepare for training for the job market.
     Horowitz acted as an observer and occasional participant in the
program, interacting with the young women in the classroom and out,
joining them for lunch or talking to them as they waited for their
bus. From the beginning, the students knew she was carrying out
research for a book.
     Horowitz gained the women's trust, and her book gives thumbnail
pictures of how the teens talked, their problems, their lives and how
they reacted to the program.
     As a day-to-day observer, Horowitz became aware of the different
styles of interaction of the social service providers and instructors
with the students and divided them into two groups, whom she called
the arbiters and the mediators.
     In general, the arbiters were the "take charge" types who set
firm, rules, wished to be in control and rarely related to the young
women in an informal way. For the teens, Horowitz said, it was as if
these staff members cracked open the door to the world a little and
said, "If you do exactly what I tell you to, you will succeed."
     Their attitude, she said, was that a young woman's motherhood was
a liability or "dirty laundry" in the public world. The basis of their
approach was to maintain their own authority and to keep the group
members in a dependent and subordinate position.
     The mediators, on the other hand, tried to encourage the young
mothers to make their own decisions and establish their own goals.
They were less distant and often illustrated their points with
examples from their own lives. Their attitude toward welfare was that
it was like a "scholarship," supporting the teen mothers as they
undertook training for the future. As a result, the mediators were
more successful in having a genuine dialog with the teen mothers.
     There was little oversight of the program by the government, and
the outlook for the teen mothers was not changed appreciably, Horowitz
said. In the conclusion of the book, she said that while some did
finish their GEDs, two were in jail, some had more children, and one
teen, who worked to complete the program, was still in a part-time,
minimum-wage job four years later.
     The book is directed to three audiences-social service personnel
who are on the frontlines of making welfare programs work; those who
develop policies and programs dealing with welfare; and sociologists
who are interested in citizenship and the welfare state.
     The book's inside view and insights into the day-to-day
operations of a government program by a trained observer and
sociologist can be useful in forming other programs.
     A graduate of Temple University with master's and doctoral
degrees from the University of Chicago, Horowitz also is the author of
Honor and the American Dream, a study of youths in a Chicano
neighborhood in Chicago, which was published in 1983.
                                                   -Sue Swyers Moncure