Clawson, Dan, and Naomi Gerstel. [2002] 2005. "Caring for Our Young: Child Care in Europe and the United States". Pp. 263-270 in Understanding Society, 2nd ed., edited by Margaret L. Andersen, Kim Logio, and Howard Taylor. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning, Inc.
Clawson and Gerstel contrast public child-care in the United States with that of France and Denmark to demonstrate the lack of quality in American social programs.
Restructuring of welfare, employment, and family patterns has led to more American parents seeking child care because they need or want it. Preschool is now a cultural norm, experts "increasingly emphasize the potential benefits of child care", and Congress encourages child care to help kids through school later on (thus keeping them out of jail) and keep mothers working and families together.
In America, many parents move their children "among relatives, informal settings, and formal center care, sometimes all in one day". One in eight working mothers has three or more child care arrangements, and half of working mothers have at least two. "A very small number of the wealthy hire nannies", but much more commonly other family members care for children or parents work alternating shifts.
In France, almost 100% of children are enrolled in the voluntary école maternelle system, which guarantees a place for all children, is integrated into the school system, boasts a broad but appropriate curriculum, and is completely free to parents. Government assistance is provided based on geographic area (often to cities or areas that require the additional resources), and don't single out poor children (as U.S. Free Lunch programs do). Staff hold masters' degrees and are paid teachers' salaries, in contrast to U.S. preschool teachers and child care workers who, in 1998, averaged $8.32 and $6.61 per hour, respectively.
The differences in cost of child care are notable. "In almost every community across the United States, a year of child care costs more than a year at a public university—in some cases twice as much". U.S. Government subsidies favor the poor, but due to a lack of congressional support only 1.8 million receive subsidies of the 15 million children who qualify for them. In France, the child care programs are free to parents, who recognize that education is a social responsibility; the French government spends about $5,500 USD per child per year, or about 1% of the country's GDP which is five times what the U.S. government spends on early childhood education.
The Danish system differs markedly from the French system. Children are enrolled from birth through age six and are provided "relatively unstructured curricula" overseen by pedagogues rather than teachers, although they are paid teachers' salaries. Unlike the French system, which seeks to educate children, the Danish system aids working parents. It is decentralized, although 80% of its funding comes from the government.
The United States early education system operates on the idea of intimate child-adult relations instead of education or pragmatism. Calling this system the "mother-substitute model", the authors explain:
The article's major weakness is its criticism of the United States child care system and, in some cases, lack thereof. The authors glorify the European systems, especially the French, as ideal, while ignoring their drawbacks. They likewise fail to note the positives of the American system, which leads to an unbalanced argument.
I like their claim that our child care system reflects our social values, and their supporting of this claim with evidence from French, Danish, and Japanese sources. It is a key idea of sociology that values are pervasive, influencing social structure just as structures influence values. Intentionally high class sizes and ratios are enacted by social values to promote social values, which in turn lend support to the continuation of the existing social structures. In the United States, our individualist values perpetuate themselves along the same lines. This is one example that can easily be expanded.
Relevance: 4/5 (relevant)
Salience: 4/5 (salient)
References:
Clawson and Gerstel contrast public child-care in the United States with that of France and Denmark to demonstrate the lack of quality in American social programs.
Restructuring of welfare, employment, and family patterns has led to more American parents seeking child care because they need or want it. Preschool is now a cultural norm, experts "increasingly emphasize the potential benefits of child care", and Congress encourages child care to help kids through school later on (thus keeping them out of jail) and keep mothers working and families together.
In America, many parents move their children "among relatives, informal settings, and formal center care, sometimes all in one day". One in eight working mothers has three or more child care arrangements, and half of working mothers have at least two. "A very small number of the wealthy hire nannies", but much more commonly other family members care for children or parents work alternating shifts.
In France, almost 100% of children are enrolled in the voluntary école maternelle system, which guarantees a place for all children, is integrated into the school system, boasts a broad but appropriate curriculum, and is completely free to parents. Government assistance is provided based on geographic area (often to cities or areas that require the additional resources), and don't single out poor children (as U.S. Free Lunch programs do). Staff hold masters' degrees and are paid teachers' salaries, in contrast to U.S. preschool teachers and child care workers who, in 1998, averaged $8.32 and $6.61 per hour, respectively.
The differences in cost of child care are notable. "In almost every community across the United States, a year of child care costs more than a year at a public university—in some cases twice as much". U.S. Government subsidies favor the poor, but due to a lack of congressional support only 1.8 million receive subsidies of the 15 million children who qualify for them. In France, the child care programs are free to parents, who recognize that education is a social responsibility; the French government spends about $5,500 USD per child per year, or about 1% of the country's GDP which is five times what the U.S. government spends on early childhood education.
The Danish system differs markedly from the French system. Children are enrolled from birth through age six and are provided "relatively unstructured curricula" overseen by pedagogues rather than teachers, although they are paid teachers' salaries. Unlike the French system, which seeks to educate children, the Danish system aids working parents. It is decentralized, although 80% of its funding comes from the government.
The United States early education system operates on the idea of intimate child-adult relations instead of education or pragmatism. Calling this system the "mother-substitute model", the authors explain:
Because of a widespread assumption in the United States that all women naturally have maternal feelings and capacities, child care staff, who are almost all women (about 98%), are not required to have special training (and do not need to be well paid). Even for regulated providers, 41 out of 50 states require no pre-service training beyond orientation.Due to this lack of training and perceived importance of maternal intimacy, "the child-staff ratio is one of the most prominent measures used to assess quality and is central to most state licensing systems" (a fact corroborated by the Department of Health and Human Services). In contrast, the French system has one teacher and one aide for 25 children. In Denmark and Italy, classes take on a child-centered approach with a high child-staff ratio and encourage children to interact with peers through "'attractive', 'advantageous', and 'constructive' conflict" that prime children for future social interactions. In Japan, teachers are encouraged to keep high child-staff ratios to keep them from "being too mother-like in their interactions with students"; high ratios help promote the Japanese values of groupism and selflessness.
The article's major weakness is its criticism of the United States child care system and, in some cases, lack thereof. The authors glorify the European systems, especially the French, as ideal, while ignoring their drawbacks. They likewise fail to note the positives of the American system, which leads to an unbalanced argument.
I like their claim that our child care system reflects our social values, and their supporting of this claim with evidence from French, Danish, and Japanese sources. It is a key idea of sociology that values are pervasive, influencing social structure just as structures influence values. Intentionally high class sizes and ratios are enacted by social values to promote social values, which in turn lend support to the continuation of the existing social structures. In the United States, our individualist values perpetuate themselves along the same lines. This is one example that can easily be expanded.
Relevance: 4/5 (relevant)
Salience: 4/5 (salient)
References:
- none.
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