In this episode we hear from Adrian Huerta of the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. Huerta shares his research that came from talking to gang-associated youth in high school, what their education experiences looked like, and how that translated to what they thought about the options they had when it came to going to college.

For this episode, we hear from Maia Cucchiara, a professor of Urban Education at Temple University. She talks about low-income mothers' experiences with parenting education courses, which are designed to teach parenting techniques and about things like child development. They might be offered in schools or community settings and participation is sometimes voluntary, sometimes included as part of participation in other programs, and sometimes mandated as part of a court decision, for example. The interview draws on a paper she wrote on the hidden curriculum of parenting education. We hear about what was taught in the classes she observed, what wasn't, and why that matters.

There's a sort of conventional wisdom that during recessions, more people enroll in college or stay in college longer when jobs are scarce. But it's not clear that this "benefit" extends to everyone. In this episode, Howard University economist Andria Smythe talks about her research looking at how college outcomes of young adults shifted during a recession and how she found that those from disadvantaged backgrounds' levels of college completion were hurt more during a recession.

In this episode, we hear from IRP Director Katherine Magnuson about components of the just-released American Families Plan. Magnuson discusses parental leave, funding for child care, universal pre-kindergarten, and expansions of child tax credits. She says efforts to support parents and invest in families can help them to meet their goals and do what they want to do for their children and for themselves.

In this episode, we hear from Joshua Wright, Community Project Coordinator with the Cancer Health Disparities Initiative at the UW Carbone Cancer Center. Wright shares the importance of making and keeping connections within the community both for educational and career purposes, and how getting involved with local efforts can lead to valuable experiences and relationships.

In this episode, we hear from Kadijha Marquardt-Davis, who was a legislative assistant in the Wisconsin State Legislature at the time of the interview and has since become policy advisor for a representative in the legislature. In the interview, Marquardt-Davis talks about how she became interested in policy, tips for transitioning from school to the professional world, and the importance of finding a mentor.

In this episode we hear from Kim Sutter, Director of Services for Porchlight, which is the largest provider of low-cost housing and homeless services in Dane County, Wisconsin. Sutter holds an undergraduate degree in social work from UW-Madison and shares her career path to oversees multiple programs as well as a large staff and volunteers. She also explains how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the homeless population and how Porchlight could provide services.

A striking number of women, and especially moms, have left the U.S. labor force since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. In this podcast episode, labor economist Kathryn Anne Edwards talks about some of the patterns she's seen around why women are leaving the labor force and how the lack of support for working parents could roll back the gains we've seen in women's work and the economic benefits that have come with them.

In the last few decades, there has been a major expansion in the number of states and localities offering full-day kindergarten. In this podcast episode, economist Chloe Gibbs of the University of Notre Dame talks about how these expansions impacted academic achievement and outcomes at the school district level.

In this episode, Timothy Smeeding talks about proposals from Senator Mitt Romney and from Democratic leadership for a fully refundable monthly child tax credit or child allowance and how these types of policies could reduce child poverty and help working parents in the pandemic and beyond.

Smeeding is the Lee Rainwater Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs and Economics at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was Director of the Institute for Research on Poverty from 2008-2014.