Abstract
The issue of quality in day care provision for children has received considerable attention in recent years. Researchers, practitioners, parents and other stakeholders all have a need to define what is meant by good quality care. However, because quality as a relative, values based concept that is wholly constructed and subjective, there can be no single, universal definition of quality in day care. This paper argues that the best alternative to a universally accepted definition of quality is a conceptual framework within which different definitions of quality can be deconstructed. Such a framework is described. Developed from work undertaken in the health care field, it builds on existing day care work to provide a practical tool that can be used by stakeholders to understand the values implicit in different definitions of quality and the processes that went into the production of those definitions.