The construction of client identities in a post-welfare social service program: The double bind of microenterprise development

Social service organizations are important sites for constructing client identities and transmitting dominant cultural discourses about deservedness and entitlement (Miller 1989;Trethewey 1997; Holstein and Miller 1996). Historically, social service organizations generally, and welfare organizations in particular, have been charged with distinguishing deserving from undeserving program applicants. Ironically, this process has produced a situation wherein, despite their ostensible role in extending opportunities to the disadvantaged, welfare agencies promote discourses, ideologies, materials, and practices that reinforce images of many poor as undeserving and unentitled (Quadagno and Fobes 1995; Schneider and Ingram 1997).