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Upward mobility in Detroit: Talk explores working families’ struggles

Contact: Kristen Kerecman, 734-604-2891, kristker@umich.edu
Nicole Casal Moore, 734-647-7087, ncmoore@umich.edu

Livestream: myumi.ch/a8nvW

EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT
Upward mobility in Detroit: Talk explores working families’ struggles

DATE: 4-5:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 29, 2017.

EVENT: Social policy expert Kristin S. Seefeldt will discuss her research on the challenges to upward mobility faced by many working families in Detroit. Seefeldt, assistant professor of social work and public policy, spent six years conducting in-depth interviews with women in Detroit. She has charted the increasing social isolation of many low-income workers, particularly African Americans, and analyzed how economic and residential segregation are keeping them from achieving the American Dream. While education, employment, and homeownership have long been considered stepping stones to the middle class, Seefeldt shows how many working families only have access to a separate but unequal set of poor-quality jobs, low-performing schools, and declining housing markets that offer few chances for upward mobility.

Seefeldt is the author of Abandoned Families: Social Isolation in the Twenty-First Century, published in December by the Russell Sage Foundation.

The talk will be followed by a book signing. It will be livestreamed at myumi.ch/a8nvW. Join the conversation at #policytalks.

PLACE: Weill Hall, Annenberg Auditorium, 735 S. State Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109. View a map.

MORE INFORMATION:
Abandoned Families: Social Isolation in the Twenty-First Century
Kristin S. Seefeldt

SPONSORS: Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, School of Social Work, and U-M’s Poverty Solutions initiative.