Child care quality: centers and home settings that serve poor families
Child care quality: centers and home settings that serve poor families
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DOI：
10.1016/j.ecresq.2004.10.006
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发表时间：
2004-01-01
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Chang, YW
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Fuller, B;Kagan, SL;Chang, YW
在严格控制的示范项目之外，以中心为基础的护理对早期发展的影响似乎是积极的，但对来自低收入家庭的儿童来说往往是温和的。但人们对低收入社区中心和幼儿园的质量差异知之甚少。关于观察到的家庭护理质量的证据也仍然很少，大多数儿童都会参加这种环境，现在联邦政府的大笔资金注入到了这种环境中。本文报告了加利福尼亚州、康涅狄格州或佛罗里达州五个城市的166个儿童服务中心和187个非父母家庭机构(包括家庭托儿所和亲属或亲属提供者)为儿童提供服务的质量。与以家庭为基础的环境相比，根据提供者教育和结构化学习活动的强度衡量，中心显示出更高的平均质量，但并不总是表现出更积极的儿童与提供者互动。在中心和以家庭为基础的环境中观察到了很大的差异，包括城市之间的差异。其次，我们发现，与家庭层面的选择因素相比，背景邻里关系属性对所选提供者的质量的影响更大。语言能力较强(pPVT分数)的母亲确实选择了更高质量的中心；那些每周工作时间更长的母亲依赖于教育水平较低的亲戚和亲戚提供者。详细说明了不同质量度量之间的相互关系。讨论了中心和家庭护理质量如此大的差异的政策含义，包括各州如何更仔细地加强监管或质量改进努力。(C)2004 Elsevier Inc.保留所有权利。
The effects of center-based care on early development, outside of carefully controlled demonstration programs, appear to be positive yet often modest for children from low-income families. But little is known about variation in the quality of centers and preschools found among low-income neighborhoods. Evidence also remains scarce on the observed quality of home-based care, the settings that most children attend and into which large infusions of federal dollars are now directed. This paper reports on the observed quality of 166 centers and 187 nonparental home settings (including family child care homes and kith or kin providers) serving children in five cities situated in California, Connecticut, or Florida. Centers displayed higher mean quality as gauged by provider education and the intensity of structured learning activities, compared to home-based settings, but did not consistently display more positive child-provider interactions. Great variability among centers and home-based settings was observed, including between-city differences. Second, we found that contextual neighborhood attributes accounted for the quality of providers selected more strongly than family-level selection factors. Mothers with stronger verbal abilities (PPVT scores) did select higher quality centers; those employed longer hours each week relied on kith and kin providers with lower education levels. Interrelationships among different quality measures are detailed. The policy implications of such wide disparities in center and home-based care quality are discussed, including how states could more carefully strengthen regulatory or quality improvement efforts. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.