Holyfield, Lori. (2002). Moving Up and Out: Poverty, Education, and the Single Parent Family. Michele S. Moses, Arizona State University

	Holyfield, Lori. (2002). Moving Up and Out: Poverty, Education, and the Single Parent Family. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. xx + 159pp. $59.50 (cloth)     1-56639-914-9 $19.95 (paper)     1-56639-915-7 Michele S. Moses Arizona State University July 26, 2004 Should welfare recipients have the opportunity to pursue postsecondary education? The answer seems straightforward enough; U.S. welfare policy makes it close to impossible for welfare participants to attend college. This is the problem that Lori Holyfield examines in Moving Up and Out: Poverty, Education, and the Single Parent Family. Holyfield has written a book about single parents, poverty, welfare, and education. Her own story fostered her interest in the intersection of these complex issues: she was a high school drop out struggling as a head of household who relied on public assistance at times, and eventually completed her GED and later a Ph.D. in Sociology. She is now a tenured faculty member, teaching at the University of Arkansas. In the book’s seven chapters, Holyfield told the overlapping stories of single mothers who are college students, an Arkansas scholarship program for single parents, and the sociopolitical climate of welfare reform and antipoverty policy. She wrote about the Arkansas Single Parent Scholarship Fund from the perspective of someone who received one of the first such scholarships. Her personal story provides the backdrop for her analysis. In Moving Up and Out, Holyfield unabashedly advocated for higher education opportunities for people in poverty. Her aim was to share the stories of scholarship recipients as they struggle to leave poverty. As Holyfield explained, “I wanted to know if obtaining an education was as much of a life-changing event for others as it was for me” (p. xv). In addition, she hoped that the scholarship fund could be replicated in other states. According to Holyfield, “[f]or most poor single mothers, just the opportunity to obtain a post-secondary education is an empowering first step in their journey toward independence” (p. xiii). The scholarship program is almost more important for its symbolism (than for the small cash award it provides) because it sends these students the message that someone in their community believes in them. The Foreword, written by Senator Hillary Clinton, is quite political, yet the book as a whole feels strangely devoid of politics. Holyfield does not often directly argue a point with a scholarly opponent. Overall, the book provides a no-nonsense, accessible approach to the relationship between poverty, welfare, education, and social mobility. Holyfield has an insider-researcher perspective. Her research was composed of interviews with 41 single mothers who are students or have finished their studies; and interviews with 12 women who dropped out of college. Plus, it provides an example of an apparently small scale, easy to manage program that has made a big difference in the lives of poor single parents interested in pursuing postsecondary education. Unfortunately, the research participants’ stories are often too brief. Holyfield claimed to interweave her participants’ stories in each of the book’s first five chapters, but really we learn little more of their real lives than a quote here and there can tell us. For instance, in Chapter Three, Holyfield mentioned that a research participant is working on her Master’s degree and is embarrassed about having received public assistance (p. 37). I found myself wanting to know her story. This happened repeatedly throughout the book. In addition to providing a context for an examination of poverty and a brief history of welfare policy in the U.S., Holyfield discussed the current context as well: “Many of the single mothers who participated in the research for this book could not have finished their educations under current welfare law and the limitations of Clinton-era reforms” (p. 15). The 1996 federal welfare reform law highlights the importance of Holyfield’s advocacy for postsecondary educational opportunities for welfare participants. The law constituted a shift in the philosophy behind 1960s poverty relief from benefits and safety nets for poor families to a focus on personal responsibility, with aid contingent upon work activity. The welfare law’s major effect was to require work participation of anyone receiving public assistance in the form of cash benefits. Related to education, another important consequence of the law was to restrict the ability of welfare participants to pursue postsecondary education. The welfare law, entitled the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), is currently in the process of being reauthorized by congress. In 2003, the House of Representatives passed HR 4, a reauthorization bill, which as of this writing is awaiting passage by the Senate as well. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the PRWORA renewal process is being conducted with little attention to the ramifications for educational opportunities. In fact, the Bush administration has advocated for the reauthorization of the welfare act to include even more stringent work participation rules. HR 4, the Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act, does just that, and as is evident from the change in title, includes a renewed emphasis on the traditional, nuclear family. One major result is constrained opportunities for higher education for welfare participants. Holyfield pointed out that the major barriers to success are inadequate or nonexistent child support; inadequate or unaffordable childcare; transportation issues; and an irrational welfare system that interprets participants’ needs for them, often incorrectly. In addition, she examined the stereotypes and social representations with which welfare participants often must contend, including this interesting finding: What surprised me the most during my research was the degree to which so many of the women shared these [negative] images of themselves. In retrospect, I should have anticipated this. After all, the negative messages about welfare carry with them a surge of moral legitimation from the media to politicians to even the clergy. (p. 38) Unfortunately, Holyfield, while telling us that women feel this way, does not offer much evidence from her data to this effect. There is little insight from the voices of the single mothers interviewed about “the obstacles that led them to drop out or the benefits education has brought to them” (pp. xvii-xviii). We learn little more than ‘dropping out was a bad idea,’ or ‘with a college education one could get a better job that paid more money.’ Again, Holyfield reported what the participants thought. We do not hear their unique voices. I was left wanting more details, thicker description of the research participants’ lives and struggles. For example, Holyfield recounted that “results varied, but the women interviewed in this study shared emotionally charged accounts of how education changed their lives, gave them confidence, enhanced their self-esteem and personal well-being, and changed their expectations not only for themselves but for their children. The positive effects of education cannot be denied” (p. 79). I believe her, but again, I would have liked to hear what the women had to say for themselves. I think it was a key finding that the children of the women who finished their degrees benefited in both tangible and intangible ways. Yet, Holyfield glossed over this finding. She also seemed to gloss over what the women who did not finish their degrees had to say. These participants get one paragraph at the end of a chapter. By way of explanation, Holyfield said that she “could not develop a clear profile of a ‘dropout’” (p. 84). Nonetheless, Holyfield successfully explained just how poverty is a social phenomenon, rather than a personal problem. She pointed out, “when a social phenomenon affects significant segments of a population, it is no longer a personal trouble but instead becomes a social issue” (p. 47). She also explored the relationship between education and social mobility. Her main argument is that education needs to be accessible for poor people. The argument hinges on the notion that postsecondary education allows poor single parents to strive for and attain high paying and high status jobs and careers that would otherwise be out of reach. This, Holyfield argues, provides people in poverty with the opportunity to leave poverty – and welfare support – for good, which justifies using public funds toward welfare participants’ educational expenses. Finally, Holyfield detailed how to start a Single Parent Scholarship Fund and concluded by providing her own policy recommendations regarding welfare requirements and participants’ access to and opportunity for post-secondary education. As informative and well written as Moving Up and Out is, the conclusion is a disappointment. Holyfield’s work is advocacy research. Yet, it feels as though she has tried to avoid difficult political discussions. For instance, regarding the 1996 welfare reforms, she noted: “The success of this policy will depend greatly upon the skills and educational welfare recipients take with them into the workplace. Otherwise they will move from welfare poor to working poor, a group that federal policy has yet to address” (p. 106). But she offers no discussion about why this might be, that perhaps such an outcome is precisely the reason for current welfare policy. Holyfield regards current welfare policy as “dangerous,” but does not examine or discuss the political forces behind it. The crucial point of her whole argument receives only one paragraph of attention, which failed to capture the complexity of the issue: “The work requirements mandated in the 1996 welfare-reform law preclude most welfare recipients from getting a post-secondary education…. This policy will have to change to make a real difference in the lives of single parents and their children” (p. 117). In the current political climate, that conclusion is just not forceful enough. About the Reviewer Michele Moses is Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Arizona State University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder, specializing in the philosophy of education and education policy analysis. She is the author of a new book, Embracing Race: Why We Need Race-Conscious Education Policy (Teachers College Press, 2002). Her research focuses on issues of equality and social justice within education policies related to multiculturalism and poverty.