Tracing classed and gendered relations in education and social welfare policy discourses in New Brunswick

This dissertation is a genealogical analysis of the discursive formation of classed and gendered relations in education policy and its intersection with social welfare policy in New Brunswick. It is about how structural and institutional inequalities are mapped onto women's bodies. The study draws on Michel Foucault's work on genealogy, to trace social welfare and education policy discourse. It draws on Margaret Somers' work on narrative research, to illustrate the situational, relational, and historical production of meanings attached to discursive practices. It employs poststructural and materialist feminist theories to show how narratives embedded within social welfare and education policy discourse re/produce classed and gendered relations and how these narratives interface with the larger social, political, and economic contexts in which they are embedded.;A discursive analysis of social welfare and education policies, research reports, and media stories shows the continuities in policy discourse, while discontinuities mark those moments in discourse where new configurations of power emerge. Discursive continuities and discontinuities work to discipline working-classed women's lives in New Brunswick. Autobiographical pieces, woven throughout the dissertation, illustrate the impact of policy discourse that legitimize inequalities and effect the formation of working-classed girls' and women's subjectivities. These excerpts illustrate the debilitating effects of material, i.e., social, political, and economic deprivation and the centrality of being classed and gendered. The analysis shows how current discursive practices in education and social welfare policies are historical and have classed and gendered effects.