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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Racial/Ethnic Differences In Religious Congregation-Based Social Service Delivery Efforts, R. Khari Brown Dec 2008

Racial/Ethnic Differences In Religious Congregation-Based Social Service Delivery Efforts, R. Khari Brown

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The current study utilizes Swidler's (1986) cultural toolkit theory to explain racial/ethnic differences in American religious congregations' provision of social service programs. This study suggests that black Americans' reliance upon structural tools to assess poverty contributes to their congregations being more heavily involved than majority white congregations in the provision of social services that attempt to make a longer-term impact on community life (i.e. academic tutoring and job training). In contrast, white Americans' greater reliance upon individualistic tools to understand poverty arguably contributes to their congregations being more heavily involved in the provision of programs that have a shorter- term …


Dropped From The Rolls: Mexican Immigrants, Race, And Rights In The Era Of Welfare Reform, Alejandra Marchevsky, Jeanne Theoharis Sep 2008

Dropped From The Rolls: Mexican Immigrants, Race, And Rights In The Era Of Welfare Reform, Alejandra Marchevsky, Jeanne Theoharis

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Welfare reform transferred considerable discretion over eligibility standards and benefits to individual caseworkers, contributing to a highly diffuse, yet system-wide, practice of discrimination against nonwhite and foreign-born families within the new TANF program. Based on a two-year ethnographic study of welfare reform's impact on Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles County, this article documents a pattern of heightened anti-immigrant sentiment and disentitlement within L.A. County's welfare system following the passage of PRWORA. The vast majority of eligible immigrant families in our study lost some or all of their cash and food stamp benefits, and were systematically denied access to the work …