Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

2-2026

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Sociology

Advisor

Barbara Katz Rothman

Committee Members

Calvin John Smiley

Leslie McCall

Tamara Mose

Subject Categories

Disability Studies | Race and Ethnicity | Social Justice

Keywords

mothering, child welfare, new york city, carceral logics, resistance, identity formation

Abstract

Good Mothers: Black Disabled Mothers & the Family Policing System is a qualitative study utilizing 16 in-depth individual interviews with mothers who broadly identified as Black, disabled mothers who had at least one interaction with the family policing system as adults in or around NYC. The study examines the work these mothers engage in to navigate their identities and strategically present themselves as good mothers while facing state surveillance and oppressive systems (specifically the family policing system) which automatically frame them as “unfit mothers.” It traces their experiences and the identity work that they engage in through the anticipatory trauma they experience and navigate prior to the system entering their lives, frequently before they even have children, to how they experience the myriad state systems which intervene in their lives and frame them as unfit, to how they ultimately respond and resist the family policing system through both individual identity navigation and solidaristic identity formation.

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