Discerning childcare quality: parents as potential informants of policy beyond regulation

Abstract

In the context of market-based childcare provision, governments in many industrialised countries use regulation to ensure quality standards and practices. Limited research, however, has investigated parents' perceptions of childcare quality and whether what parents value as contributors to quality resonates with regulatory frameworks. This article critically uses the Bourdieuian notion of ‘taste’ to explore the perspectives of parent users of high-quality childcare in Australia. Findings from six case studies show that irrespective of educational attainment, parents conceptualise ‘quality’ in childcare in ways that are consistent with, but also extend beyond, regulation. Parents identified factors such as engagement with the local community, not-for-profit community-based provision, and stability of committed staff who experience high job satisfaction as important to the provision of quality childcare. Identification of these factors highlights regulation as a potential discursive strategy that neutralises demand for other complementary but more contentious policy approaches.

Keywords:

• Bourdieu
• early child education
• educational
• early childhood policy
• parent perspectives
• poststructural/postmodern/critical theory
• qualitative research methods

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Australian Research Council (Discovery Project DP0881729) and supported by a New Staff grant from Macquarie University. The author thanks the two reviewers who provided constructive feedback on a previous version of this manuscript.