Through careful ethnography and rich in-depth interviews at a non-profit foster family agency, this book takes a look behind the scenes of our troubled foster care system.

Teresa Toguchi Swartz is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on families; race, class, and gender; and social policy.

Acknowledgements. 1. Introduction: The State as Parent 2. The Context of Foster Care Policy and Practice 3. Foster Care through Expert Eyes 4. Money, Meaning and Mothering: The multiple motivations of foster parent carework 5. Negotiating 'Hope': The challenges of state supervised parenting 6. Caring Professionals and Professional Caring 7. The Perils and Promises of Privatization 8. Foster Care and the Welfare State in Ethnographic Perspective Notes. Bibliography. Index.