"Pre-K for All": Understanding Transformations in Cultural Categories of Worth

• In Event: 296 - Regular Session. Welfare State 1: Defining the Deserving

Abstract

Cultural categories of worth have long been considered to be an entrenched—and highly durable—feature of American social politics, forming the moral underpinning of our two-tiered system of social provision. That cultural categories of deservingness might be challenged and transformed has rarely been considered a possibility in political sociology. Not since the roll out of Social Security in the 1930s have the “stigmatized” beneficiaries of public assistance programs ever been transformed into rights-bearing citizens. The dramatic growth of public preschool offers a rare opportunity to observe how such transformations in cultural categories occur. Historically, Americans have viewed the care and education of small children as a private, family responsibility, approving government intervention only for families “at risk” because of poverty. Today, 40 states have introduced some form of publicly funded pre-K program for four-year-olds, and in a growing number of cities and states, pre-K programs are universally available to all children, regardless of income. Using data drawn from over 50 in-depth interviews, we argue that pre-K advocates successfully challenged longstanding cultural categories of worth by framing beneficiaries as long-term investments rather than welfare dependents. Cultural reclassifications in social policy require a justificatory logic that avoids an emphasis on rights- or needs-based distribution as a basis for state intervention. By relying on a logic of social investment—or the idea that public spending is conducive to advanced economies—advocates shifted the debate away from moral arguments about deservingness and refocused public preschool as a vehicle for achieving economic growth.

Authors

• Kelly Russell, University of Michigan

• Sandra R. Levitsky, University of Michigan