Abstract
System Kids is a powerful example of feminist ethnography at its best. Lauren Silver describes the experiences of young black mothers aged 16–20 in a Northeastern U.S. city, labeled by the juvenile court as either dependent or delinquent and placed in supervised independent living (SIL), in this case a multisite supportive housing program designed specifically for mothers under juvenile court jurisdiction. Organized around inconsistences and challenges in these young women’s lives, this book embraces contradictions as a source of insight and reveals the double standards, institutional neglect, and stark social inequality that shape their lives. Among its many strengths are its accessibility, presentation of multiple perspectives, and a strong systemic critique.
System Kids is useful for readers seeking an understanding of the mandate and operation of SIL programs, specifically, and the child welfare and juvenile justice systems more broadly. Silver’s discussion of how young mothers are living in fear—of victimization, homelessness, and having their children removed—is difficult to read but important to document. She elucidates the liminal state in which these young women operate, somewhere between childhood and adulthood, such that they have to meet the contradictory mandates of both children and adults (e.g., emphasizing their dependent status while simultaneously demonstrating their competence in order to received needed services), yet receive the benefits of neither (revealed most starkly by their lack of both protection and agency). Similarly, the girls struggle through circumstances in which they cannot reveal their victimization for fear that it will jeopardize their continuation in the SIL program, but must make strategic use of it to secure needed resources in other situations. Written from an intersectional perspective, the book examines how race, class, gender, sexuality, and age combine to shape the expectations and experiences of these girls.
The multiple viewpoints that Silver presents is a highlight. Very little academic work includes staff perspectives, especially of caseworkers and direct service providers. System Kids skillfully demonstrates the impossibility of accomplishing that with which they are charged, given resource limitations and broader structural inequality. Silver found that, at times, some staff preserve their sense of competence by requiring girls to adjust to unjust circumstances, revealing the challenges of this work and reasons for high turnover. Silver also shows how girls’ and staffs’ interests and perspectives sometimes align; for example, they all feel trapped by the underresourced systems in which they operate. The girls also feel trapped by the broader society, which too frequently judges and labels them, presenting expectations that are impossible to meet given their circumstances. The book reveals the disconnect between staff who work directly with girls and higher level administration, and how the latter are guided by a problematic strategy of risk management rather than a framework in which girls’ needs are met and their rights assured.
System Kids does not present a straightforward description of these young women’s lives. Silver explains, “It is not that their daily lives are unintelligible but, rather, that fragmented systems project disjointed representations” (p. 3). Silver notes that she intentionally does not focus on individual stories but rather on providing an understanding of girls’ attempts to negotiate the complex systems that both support and regulate them, and too often neglect and fail them. In so doing, she presents an incisive critique of how our systems are underfunded and charged with impossible goals, given the broader structural inequality in which they exist. This critique provides powerful support for collective change efforts such as the Fight for $15, the Black Lives Matter movement, and, most recently, the focus on the inequities faced by black girls in the United States led by Kimberlé Crenshaw, Michelle Obama, and others.
Though Silver is not a social worker, her past employment in the program she studied clearly enhanced her insight and empathy and helped her to connect with the girls and elucidate their experiences. I was moved by the afterward and Silver’s reflections on what brought her to this work and how it informed her research interactions and interpretations. Her discussion provides a wonderful example of critical feminist scholarship and epistemological critique of “objective” social science. Silver exposes her own vulnerability and, in so doing, connects the reader with the girls whose lives she has so carefully and thoughtfully documented.