Day care

Day care

Refers to care of children by carers other than their parents
1. This usually takes place outside of the home
  1. Child Minders
  2. Nanny/au pair
  3. Day Nurseries
  4. Pre-school
Social development
1. Is the child's behaviour in relation to other people
2. This includes peer relationships, friendships and aggression
  1. Peer relationships- includes how well children get on with other children. This could include child's ability to make friends and play co-operatively with other children
  2. Aggression is the behaviour which has the sole purpose of injuring another person or themselves. Aggression can be verbal or physical.
Effects of daycare on aggresion
1. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development ( NICHD)
  1. In the US the NICHD has followed the progress of more than 100 children since 1991
    1. The more time the children spend in daycare centres from birth to 4 and a half years, the more adults rates them as agressive between 2 and 6 years old both at home and at school.
      1. Negative
2. Effective Provision of pre-school of education
  1. In Britain the EPPE project focused mainly on the impact of pre-school education of a group of 3000 3 and 4 year years old.
    1. High levels of group care before the age of three were associated with high levels of aggression at the age of three
      1. Negative
3. Shea
  1. Children who attended pre-school 2,3 or 5 days a week were observed via moving film techniques. Behaviour in 5 categories were recorded
    1. Over a 10 -week period, aggressive behaviour decreased in all three age groups. The changes were directly related to the number of days of attendance at pre-school. I.e the more days attented the more aggressive behaviour decreased.
      1. Positive
Effects of day care on peer relations
1. Campbell et al
  1. Compared children in Sweden in day care aged between 18 months- 3 and a half years. These were compared to home reared children until 15 years old. The children were observed with familiar peers and other children.
    1. Children who spent short days in nursery are more socially competent than home raised children. However, children who were in care for a long time each day were less socially competent than children who spent shorter days in care
      1. Negative and Positive
2. Effective Provision of pre-school of education (2003)
  1. Looked at large numbers of children in different types of pre schools using a variety of methods such as parental and pre-school staff interviews and case study observations
    1. Found high quality care was associated with greater care sociability with other children. This is particularly the case in providers who view educational and social developmental as equally important
      1. Positive
3. Bates et al
  1. Examined teachers and peer ratings of social behaviour in 600 American 5 and 6 year old.
    1. The children, who had spend a lot of time in day care during their first 5 years , were rated as significantly less socially skilled than children by teachers
      1. Negative
Strengths
1. The studies have face validity
  1. Face validity is a test to see if it's measuring what its's supposed to measure
    1. In this instance the studies have face validity because there are clear observation methods that measure the level of aggression
      1. This is a strength because it means we can be confident that the study is measuring what it's supposed to be measuring - the impact of day care on social development
2. Methodology used
  1. All studies -Natural studies
    1. A natural study is when it takes advantage of the naturally occuring situations to study their effects- no experimental manipulation of variables
      1. Factors that were naturally ocuring were that the parents were taking the children to daycare
        This is a strength because we can generalise the findings to other situations, as they are real events, given researcher higher ecological validity
3. Practical Application
  1. E.g. Campells study suggest that the amount of time spent in day care has an effect on whether children's behaviour develops postivley or negatively
    1. Therefore practical applications based on this could be by changing how many days the kids are in daycare
      1. This is a strength because it means that the findings of the research can be used to improve the day care experience for children and therefore children's social development.
Weaknesses
1. Variety of day care settings
  1. This would make it difficult to assess the effects of daycare because daycare differs so much in terms in of adult-child ratios and the number of other children present
    1. E.g. a nursery differs from a child minder because there is less attention given to a child, as there are more children to adults
      1. You can't compare different types of day care easily- this makes it extremely hard to generalise
2. Different ages and the time they spend each week
  1. It can't be assumed that a child who starts daycare at 6 months will have the same experience as a child who starts at 3 years old
    1. At 6 months they will have an attachment with the primary caregiver- separation anxiety
      1. At 3 years old they will have established attachment and don't show separation anxiety
        The time spent in daycare can also make a difference. E.g. Campbell found that shorter days mean that children are more socially competent
        This makes it difficult to asses the effect of daycare because we aren't comparing the exact same experiences of daycare both within and across studies
        This makes it hard to test for reliability
3. Day care centres vary in quality
  1. Quality of care can be influenced by factors such as
    1. Stimulation
    2. Learning experiences
    3. Structure of the day
    4. Affection and responsiveness staff
    5. Child-carer ration and group size
  2. This makes it difficult to assess the effects of daycare because it may not be daycare in general that impact on social development, but the quality of care
  3. Therefore if we are comparing studies, we need to be sure that they are both investigating day care that is of the same quality
  4. If comparisons cannot be made then we don't get a clear picture of the influence of daycare

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	Created by zeenakerai over 10 years ago