Day Care Early Socialisation

Task Taking into account your own views and what you have learned about attachment, list the pros and cons of day care.

The Nature of Day Care Today’s society means women go back to work more quickly than before. Up to 52 weeks maternity leave. The first 26 weeks is known as ‘Ordinary Maternity Leave’, the last 26 weeks as ‘Additional Maternity Leave’. The earliest leave can be taken is 11 weeks before the expected week of childbirth. Employees must take at least 2 weeks after the birth (or 4 weeks if they’re a factory worker). Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) is paid for up to 39 weeks. You get: 90% of your average weekly earnings (before tax) for the first 6 weeks £ or 90% of your average weekly earnings (whichever is lower) for the next 33 weeks

Types of Day Care Nurseries – state or private Childminders Informal arrangements.

Features of Quality Day Care Phillips and Howes (1987) identified 3 important features: Structural Features: The National Day Care Study (Roupp, Travers, Glantz and Coelen, 1979). Group size, staff:child ratio,training, space, equipment. Dynamic Features: Experiences and interactions. Contextual Features: Staff stability and turnover.

Cognitive Development +ves Bruchinel, 1989 – those who were in day care had a higher IQ than those who did not. Broberg et al., groups of 8 year-old children, who had received different types of care in infancy - day nurseries, childminders or remained at home. Those children who had experienced care in day nurseries had better verbal and mathematical abilities than the others. There was even a positive correlation between length of time spent in day nurseries and cognitive ability -Ve Bryant et al, 1983 Middle class Oxford childminders – 75% were detached, 25% had poor speech. (Baydar and Brooks-Gunn, 1991 the cognitive ability of those children who started day care earlier was lower than that of the later starters Kagen et al, 1980 No difference

Emotional Development +ves Lazar and Darlington, 1982 Headstart children were more likely to have attended college and less likely to be trouble with the law and claiming welfare. -ves World Health Organisation “Day care can cause permanent damage to a child”

Social Development +ves Shea 1981 Those who attended 5 x wk more sociable than those who attended twice. Clarke-Stewart et al, 1994 cope better with the new social interactions when they start attending school. -ves Pennebaker et al, 1981 If children are already shy day care will have a negative effect. Cole and Cole, Other studies suggest that children in day care centres tend to be more aggressive.

Conclusions What are your thoughts? What problems are there with these studies? Can we compare them like for like? Do you think the positives outweigh the negatives? If you had a child would you put them into day care? If so, which type?