Institutionalizing Child Welfare: An Interview with Matty Lichtenstein

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How do American child welfare and obstetric healthcare converge?</span> <a href= "http://www.mattylichtenstein.com/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Matty Lichtenstein</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">, a recent PhD from Berkeley’s Sociology Department, studies how state and professional organizations shape social and health inequalities in maternal and child welfare. Her current book project focuses on evolving conceptions of risk in social work and medicine, illustrated by a study of</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">the intertwined development of American child and perinatal protective policies. She is working on several collaborations related to this theme, including studies of maltreatment-related fatality rates, the racialization of medical reporting of substance exposed infants, and risk assessment in child welfare. In another stream of research, she has written on social policy change, with a focus on educational regulation and political advocacy, and she has conducted research on culture, religion, and politics.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Dr. Lichtenstein’s work has been published in</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">American Journal of Sociology</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Qualitative Methods</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">, and</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sociological Methods and Research</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. She is currently a postdoctoral research associate at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In this interview, Matrix content curator Julia Sizek asks Lichtenstein about her research on the transformation of American child welfare and the impact of that transformation on contemporary maternal and infant health practices.</span></p>