Connecting cultural models of home-based care and childminders' career paths: an eco-cultural analysis

Abstract

Family day care or childminding involves a particularly transient workforce. This paper introduces Eco(logical)-Cultural Theory (ECT) to examine the cultural organisation of childminding and presents an ECT analysis of pilot survey results: asking minders about their daily routines and their career paths. Reasons for becoming a minder and aspirations for the future varied and were associated with the organisation of daily routines. Among minders who wished to continue childminding, daily routines were related to cultural models. Those aspiring to work in centres rather than homes tended to organise daily activities high in structure (i.e. similarity from day to day). Most reported dissatisfaction with home-based facilities, suggesting dissonance between models of care and local ecology. The childminding workforce is diverse and an ECT approach focused on asking childminders about their daily lives may yield valuable empirical data to inform professional development efforts.

Keywords:

• home-based care
• professionalism
• eco-cultural theory
• family childcare
• childminding

Acknowledgements

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health under Award number P20MD003938. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. This research also received support from the Provost, the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the Department of Psychology at California State University, Northridge.The first author wishes to thank Thomas Weisner and Jennifer Romack for their thoughtful comments on drafts of this paper and Carollee Howes and Allison Wishard for their assistance. Special thanks to members of the Infancy and Early Childhood Lab at California State University, Northridge as well as the participating providers.