resources and help them to develop job and other skills that are vital to their success.
             I will now describe the contents of each of the interviews, changing names for their privacy. It should be noted that what the interviewees describe as the stereotype is what they believe that most people think is true of welfare recipients, not necessarily what they themselves believe. I began by asking what they perceived as the stereotype and how much they thought that it held true. I proceeded then to ask what they thought led to a person getting on and staying on welfare, followed by how they thought someone might get off of welfare (i.e. personal attributes as well as system requirements). For those whom I believed had misconceptions, I recalled the statistic that welfare and non-welfare mothers have the same number of kids on average, also adding discussion about the difficulty (especially for single mothers) of starting a new life in the workforce when child-care and medical coverage are at risk. I then asked for any general comments if they felt I had left anything out. Finally, I asked if they would propose a new model, or at least some portion of a model, that they thought would be of better use than the current one.
             Sarah is a middle class, Caucasian girl who grew up in a small town in Vermont. She is an Economics major with a political science minor and will also have a certificate in health policy. She says that when she considers the stereotype of the welfare recipient, the image that comes to mind is "a lazy baby factory". She claims she has quite a few friends and knows students who attended high school with her who are currently receiving at least some sort of government assistance. The people she knows, however, do not fit the stereotype, she says. Most of them ended up in their situation because they became pregnant in high school and chose to keep their babies, raising them as single mothers. Those who became pregnant and...