Children with Severe Behavior Problems: A Survey of Texas Child Care Centers' Responses

This article presents the findings of an exploratory study designed to look at the issue of removal of children from childcare due to behavior problems. A survey was sent to a random sample of nonresidential licensed day care centers (DCCs) in Texas. Results from the survey indicate that 50% of DCCs have removed a child from care due to behavior problems. In most cases, parents were left to figure out for themselves what to do with their children following their dismissal from care. This and other relationships found in the data are discussed as well as the need for future research in this area.     

Making sense of children's sexual behavior in child care: An analysis of adult responses in special investigation reports

This paper investigates how adults respond to sexual behavior among children in child care. Culturally, childhood sexuality is variously understood as natural curiosity, a sign of sexual abuse, or a symptom of a sex-offender in the making. Given these competing cultural meanings, how are sexual-like behaviors by children managed by the adults who care for them? An analysis of qualitative data from Special Investigation Reports by childcare licensing consultants in the state of Michigan is used to examine how parents, child care providers, and child care licensing consultants manage and respond to sexual behavior between children in the context of child care. How sexual behavior is responded to depends primarily on who is doing the responding – parent, childcare provider, or state licensing consultant – rather than what type of behavior is being responded to. Parents respond to a wide range of behaviors between children as if they are incidents of sexual abuse. Childcare providers respond to many of those same incidents as misbehavior. Licensing consultants understand these incidents as violation of rules of supervision, but they were also the only group to ever ask if children's sexual behavior was potentially a sign of a child having been sexually abused in another setting. Providers and parents need more education about what kinds of sexual behavior to be concerned about and what kind to understand as common. More education that sexuality that is “rare” and persistent could be a sign of sexual abuse is needed by all parties.     

The ‘childcare champion’? New Labour,social justice and the childcare market

Childcare as a policy issue has received unprecedented attention under New Labour, through various aspects of the National Childcare Strategy introduced in 1998. This policy focus looks set to continue, with the government announcing the first ever 10‐year plan for childcare in December 2004, and childcare playing a major role in the 2005 manifesto and general election. Early years care and education is a productive area for New Labour as initiatives here can address several agendas: increasing social inclusion, revitalising the labour market, and raising standards in education. The provision of childcare is seen as having the potential to bring women back into the workforce, modelling child‐rearing skills to parents understood as being in need of such support, and giving children the skills and experience they need to succeed in compulsory education. This article offers an overview of recent policy on childcare, drawing in places on a two‐year study of the choice and provision of childcare in London. The article examines the developments in childcare planned and set in motion by the government, identifying some points to be welcomed as well as areas of concern. The authors demonstrate that even for privileged middle‐class consumers, such as those in their research, the current childcare market is a very ‘peculiar’ one, especially when compared to the markets of economic theory. In conclusion, the authors argue that social justice in childcare is more than a matter of access, and highlight the lack of parental voice shaping the future direction and development of the childcare market.     

The Persistent Gap between Education and Care: a ‘History of the Present’ Research on Belgian Child Care Provision and Policy 1

The first Belgian crèches for children from birth to three years of age date from the nineteenth century. From 1919, formal legislation on child care was developed. In the early twentieth century, the origins of Belgian childcare and in its initial legislation some core aspects of present‐day child care policy and practice can be found. This article will focus on two of these historical aspects of Belgian child care. Both features have far‐reaching consequences for the organization of present child care provision, for professional qualifications and for policy matters. The first is an aspect that is very common in Western Europe, and a source of current pedagogical debate: the persistent gap between care for the infant and the education of the preschool child. The second is a typical Belgian feature of childcare: subsidized liberty as a specific form of public–private partnership. This article wishes to contribute to the debates on viewing childcare policy and practice by historicizing these issues. A close look at Belgian child care history reveals how the gap between education and care and subsidized liberty occurred and in what context. Consequently the early twentieth century will be highlighted. However, it will also focus on oppositional discourse in the 1970s. In this period, another antagonistic debate took place, namely regarding compensation programmes for ‘blue collar’ parents. The article will briefly point to some remarkable similarities between the discussion in the 1910s and the 1970s. The outcomes of these discussions, as well as the concepts underpinning them, explain the persistence of the division between education and care. The debate between Henri Velge and Elise Plasky, around which this article is composed, has been studied previously by Belgian historians. The scarce research on Belgian child care history focuses on child care as a women's employment issue, somewhat neglecting the educational aspects. This vein, i.e. that historical research itself is embedded in the discursive regime separating education from care, is the very subject of this article. Therefore, research was conducted from a hermeneutical perspective, looking at coherences between discourses and their social, economic and cultural contexts. This research aims also to acknowledge the critiques of De Certeau regarding the focus on discontinuities in the construction of history.     

The challenge of caring for mildly ill children: a Canadian national childcare study

This Canadian study of the care of mildly ill children in licensed childcare facilities compares director and parent preferences for eight models of care, exclusionary practices for ill children by directors, and preferred backup care options of parents. It also investigates anticipated usage and willingness of parents to pay for emergency childcare. Participants include 328 directors and 742 parents from center and family childcare (FCC) homes, rural and urban locales, and five provinces. Parents and directors favor “joint family-employer” and “extended family” models and least prefer “infirmary” and “special licensed” childcare models. Directors favor more strongly than parents the options of parents or relatives caring for ill children and are less supportive than parents of facility-based models. Directors usually exclude children with diarrhea, fever and lethargy but accept children with a runny nose or cough. For backup care, parents prefer themselves or extended family. Most parents would use emergency childcare services but are unwilling to pay beyond the normal childcare rate. This investigation identifies key areas in the care of mildly ill children to be examined further through prospective studies.     

Immigrants Families and Childcare Preferences: Do Immigrants’ Cultures Influence Their Childcare Decisions?

The author examines childcare preferences of African immigrant parents living in the United States. Based on interviews with eighteen parents with preschool-aged children and working within Bryman, Lewis-Beck, and Liao’s (2004) narrative inquiry, the author demonstrates that although many of the African immigrants surveyed for the study preferred family members to take care of their children in their own homes to instill African cultural identity in their children, the majority of their children were in childcare centers. The author demonstrates further that although putting children in childcare centers is not their topmost choice, in spite of their precarious financial situation, and despite the high cost of putting children in childcare centers, the immigrants were still happy to put their children in childcare centers because of their busy schedules. The immigrants’ collective nature of child upbringing contributed to their choice. The author recommends that centers must take the immigrants’ culture into consideration during their operations.     

Assessment of Early Childcare Programs in Jordan

Research Findings: Forty-five child caregivers and 120 parents participated in this study to examine perceptions of childcare programs in Jordan. The researchers developed a questionnaire that consisted of 6 dimensions: health, education, parent–caregiver relationship, facilities, building/landscape, and playground. Moreover, interviews with 10 child caregivers and 20 parents were conducted. Results indicated that child caregivers expressed moderate satisfaction with the programs. In contrast, parents expressed lower satisfaction with the childcare programs. The results also revealed that caregivers and parents perceived the playground area as effective but found health and the parent–caregiver relationship ineffective. Practice or Policy: This study highlights the need to supervise childcare programs effectively and the importance of fostering a strong partnership between child caregivers and parents.     

Hard to reach parents or hard to reach schools? A discussion of home—school relations,with particular reference to Bangladeshi and Pakistani parents

In the authors' research with Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage parents, some teachers, head teachers and other educational professionals referred to the South Asian parents as ‘hard to reach’. Whilst it was clear from the parents that they were not very, and in some cases not at all, involved in their children's schools and knew little about the education system or what their children were doing in school, it was also very apparent that the parents were not ‘difficult’, ‘obstructive’, or ‘indifferent’—the kind of behaviour ‘hard to reach’ implies. The article therefore considers that rather than parents being ‘hard to reach’, it is frequently the schools themselves that inhibit accessibility for certain parents. The authors challenge the cultural interference model, arguing that it is incorrect and pathologises parents. The article arises out of a two‐year, Economic and Social Research Council funded, qualitative study of Bangladeshi and Pakistani heritage families and schools, in the north‐east of England.     

Child care for children with and without disabilities: The provider,observer, and parent perspectives

This three-phase study, part of a larger study conducted by the Midwest Child Care Research Consortium (MCCRC), investigated the characteristics of child care providers in inclusive and non-inclusive center-based classrooms and family child care homes, the observed quality of care in a subset of these programs, and families’ perceptions of quality and satisfaction with child care services. A telephone survey of 2022 randomly selected Midwestern providers, 36% of whom provided inclusive services, revealed that inclusive providers rated themselves higher on most quality-related indicators. Inclusion status was related to observed quality in family childcare homes (n = 132), with non-inclusive homes higher, while trends in the opposite direction were observed in preschool center-based classrooms (n = 112) but not in infant/toddler center-based classrooms (n = 105). Six percent of the 1325 parents surveyed reported parenting a child with a disability. These parents indicated less income, and more frequent changes in child care settings than other families, and reported the quality of their children's child care as good, particularly if center-based. Improved access to inclusive child care services and enhanced training opportunities related to serving children with disabilities and inclusion, especially for family child care providers, is recommended.     

Children's wellbeing and cortisol levels in home-based and center-based childcare

The central question in this study is whether individual variability in children's cortisol levels and wellbeing at childcare can be explained by indices of quality of care and child characteristics. Participants were 71 children from childcare homes and 45 children from childcare centers in the age range of 20–40 months. In both types of settings equivalent measures and procedures were used. In home-based childcare, children experienced higher caregiver sensitivity, lower noise levels, and showed higher wellbeing compared to children in childcare centers. Caregiver sensitivity in home-based childcare – but not in center care – was positively associated with children's wellbeing. Additionally, children displayed higher cortisol levels at childcare than at home, irrespective of type of care. In home-based childcare, lower caregiver sensitivity was associated with higher total production of salivary cortisol during the day. In center-based childcare, lower global quality of care was associated with a rise in cortisol between 11 AM and 3 PM during the day. Quality of care is an important factor in young children's wellbeing and HPA stress reactivity.     

The work–family support roles of child care providers across settings

This paper presents a qualitative investigation of the work–family support roles of a sample of 29 child care providers serving low-income families in the Chicago area (16 family, friend, and neighbor providers (FFN), 7 licensed family child care providers (FCC), and 6 center-based teachers). Providers report offering low-income parents substantial logistical (flexible hours, help with routines) and economic help (flexible fees, help with subsidies) managing work and family, in addition to their care of children. For FFN providers, support was often provided in the context of significant stress and burden. FCC providers and center-based teachers were often constrained in their help-giving by ambivalence regarding professional guidelines and institutional constraints. Findings from this study may inform future research on the effects of child care on children and parents, and models of child care quality.     

Within and beyond the classroom door: assessing quality in child care centers

This study reports data from a multisite study of typical center-based child care and children’s development regarding (a) associations among quality of care defined by structural features, process indicators, and compliance with state regulations, (b) variation in quality based on the stringency of state child care regulations and center compliance, and (c) specific quality indicators that show especially strong links to children’s experiences in child care. Findings confirmed prior evidence regarding the importance of ratios, teacher training, and group size for high quality classroom processes, but demonstrated the more significant contribution of teacher wages and parent fees. Both structural and process measures of quality varied with the location of the center in a state with more or less stringent child care regulations. The results indicate the importance of incorporating economic and regulatory considerations into future studies of childcare quality.     

The social geography of childcare: making up a middle‐class child

Childcare is a condensate of disparate social forces and social processes. It is gendered and classed. It is subject to an excess of policy and political discourse. It is increasingly a focus for commercial exploitation. This is a paper reporting on work in progress in an ESRC funded research project (R000239232) on the choice and provision of pre‐school childcare by middle‐class (service class) families in two contrasting London locations. Drawing on recent work in class analysis the paper examines the relationships between childcare choice, middle‐class fractions and locality. It suggests that on the evidence of the findings to date, there is some evidence of systematic differences between fractions in terms of values, perspectives and preferences for childcare, but a more powerful case for intra‐class similarities, particularly when it comes to putting preferences into practice in the ‘making up of a middle‐class child’ through care and education.     

Do parents choose and value quality child care in New Zealand?

The mechanism of parent choice is sometimes viewed as a way of improving the quality of child care centres. This study looks at whether parent choice is constrained by family variables such as socio‐economic status, education and family income and to what extent parents do select quality. The sample for the present study included 100 child care centres catering for under two year old children from around New Zealand. The quality of each centre was assessed using two measures, a checklist (the Abbott‐Shim Assessment Profile) and an interval observational procedure focusing on child‐staff interactions (the Howes/Melhuish Observational Schedule). Two under two year‐olds from each centre were observed for 100 minutes and their parents filled in a questionnaire about their satisfaction with the child care centre. The study showed modest correlations (‐.18 to .27) between socio‐economic status, education and family income and the Abbott‐Shim Assessment Profile but none with observations of child/staff interactions. Eighty‐six per cent of parents in the study said that this centre was their first choice and ratings of quality were highly positive. Yet for most measures there were zero correlations between research‐based measures of quality and parent satisfaction. Qualitative data showed that there was some overlap between the criteria which parents mentioned as the ‘best’ or ‘worst’ things and criteria incorporated into research methods. Parents, however, were concerned about cost, location and convenience which were not part of the research measures. Comments on centres which were of high quality and low quality made by parents and early childhood trained researchers were compared.

Parents were much more positive and uncritical in their comments than researchers. It was concluded that many parents make passive choices of centres rather than actively choosing between alternatives and that many do not have knowledge or awareness of specific aspects of quality to look for. It was concluded that parent choice is not currently a viable means of controlling quality and that policy makers need to look to other mechanisms.     

Boys as only‐children and girls as only‐children—parental gendered expectations of the only‐child in the nuclear Chinese family in present‐day China

Studies on the effect of only‐child status on girls’ education indicate that the only‐child policy has had an unintended consequence of engendering a child‐centered culture with a strong belief and shared interest among the urban community in educating the only‐child regardless of the child’s sex. As the distribution of education by sex is frequently argued to be a key determinant for gender inequality, this finding seems to carry an unquestioned message that gender equality has been largely achieved for the only‐child generation. So far, however, few studies have examined parental gender‐specific expectations for their only children as an important factor in preparing boys and girls for their different school and social experiences. Based on data collected through semi‐structured interviews with 20 families in north China, this paper explores parental gender‐specific expectations of their only‐children. Parents’ SES is also considered in order to see how class may interact with gender in parents’ expectations for boys and girls as only‐children. The study reveals patterns of differences in parental expectations based on gender, and to a lesser degree, class. The author argues that it would be over‐optimistic to believe that only‐child status and the equally high academic aspirations parents hold for boys and girls have done away with all the deep‐rooted factors against gender equality in Chinese society. Drawing on Bourdieu’s social theory, the author discusses the implications of the findings and provides suggestions for policy efforts and further research.     

Center-Based Evening Child Care: Implications for Young Children's Development

With increasing numbers of women joining the evening/nighttime workforce, there is a need for quality childcare during these hours. This project, conducted in Japan, sought to compare the effects of child day care, child evening care, and child night care on the development and adaptation of young children. Caregivers completed a survey on the childrearing environment at home, their feelings of self-efficacy, and the presence of support for childcare. Childcare professionals evaluated the development of children. The results of the discriminant analysis indicate that factors in the home environment, not type of center-based care, explained developmental variance.     

Enriching intimacy: the role of the emotional in the ‘resourcing’ of middle‐class children

This paper analyses qualitative interviews conducted with Norwegian middle‐class parents. It explores how a particular type of intimacy – an enriching intimacy – is produced as part of everyday parent–child interactions and considers the notion of the social self that spurs middle‐class parents to seek this very type of intimacy with their child. By so doing it adds to the growing field of research on middle‐class parents’ child‐rearing strategies and the role these strategies play in the ‘resourcing’ of middle‐class children. The relevance of the dimension of intimacy for studies on the parental effect on children’s school achievement is discussed.     

Quality Childcare and Joint Attention

This study examined the experiences of infants and toddlers in New Zealand child care centres to evaluate whether they provided opportunities for learning in the context of shared attention. One hundred childcare centres througough New Zealand comprised the centre sample. Running records were carried out on 200 under 2‐year‐old children (99 boys and 101 girls, two children from each centre) for 20 minutes each. Two hundred and thirty six episodes of sustained joint attention were observed during running records, most commonly during object/toy related play, but also at a relatively high level during caregiving routines, book/picture related activities, messy creative activities and large motor play. A third of all children in the study participated in no joint attention episodes at all. Just over half (51.3%) of episodes were child‐initiated and just under half were adult‐initiated. Centres with no joint attention episodes scored significantly lower on the Assessment Profile Infant Score and centres with smaller group sizes and some Diploma level trained staff had more episodes of joint attention. Qualitative data provided evidence of staff sensitivity and responsiveness, close relationships between staff and children, reciprocity between staff and child, the central importance of language and shared meaning and the richness of joint attention episodes as a context for learning.     

Child Care Subsidies and the School Readiness of Children of Immigrants

This study is the first to test whether receipt of a federal child care subsidy is associated with children of immigrants' school readiness skills. Using nationally representative data (n ≈ 2,900), this study estimates the associations between subsidy receipt at age 4 and kindergarten cognitive and social outcomes, for children of immigrant versus native‐born parents. Among children of immigrants, subsidized center‐based care (vs. subsidized and unsubsidized home‐based care) was positively linked with reading. Among children of native‐born parents, those in subsidized center care displayed poorer math skills than those in unsubsidized centers, and more externalizing problems than those in unsubsidized home‐based care.