PUTTING SOLE MOTHERS IN THEIR PLACE: THE NORMALISING DISCOURSE OF SOCIAL POLICY.

This paper[1] argues that the JET Scheme, a jobs, education and training scheme for sole parent pensioners, is limited and insufficient to its tasks of preparing sole parents for entry into the workforce and minimising the state's financial burden. It argues that JET training programmes ascribe and regulate female identity and maintain the gendered subjugation of sole mothers, confirming rather than decreasing their dependence on welfare. The representation and language used to promote JET position sole mothers within a functionalist discourse of motherhood and the nuclear family. The paper explores the ramifications of such positioning for the women's prospects for entry into full time employment. It concludes that JET does not meet its goal of lessening the long term welfare burden of the state. Equally, policy which promotes low paid part time work, combined with partial pension, may serve to entrench the very cycle of dependence it seeks to dismantle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]