The professionalisation of family day care in Flanders, France and Germany

ABSTRACT

In several countries, childminders grew in times of economic austerity and growing awareness of the economic function of childcare, as they were legitimised by a ‘home as heaven’ ideology and low costs. As a result, childminders have long been regarded as the ‘Cinderellas’ of childcare. Three decades later, scholars and policymakers agree on the importance of the educational function of childcare and thus on the importance of professional qualifications during the same time that these countries face the attrition of an entire generation of childminders. This gives rise to both quantitative and qualitative changes and raises the need to reconceptualise family day care (FDC). However, literature on this topic is scarce and information on non-English speaking countries is even more so. We explored productive policies and practices of onthaalouders (Flanders), assistantes maternelles (France) and Tagesmütter (Germany) in order to contribute to the small but increasing body of research in this field. This study shows that while the need for childcare workers is increasing, attrition of childminders might hamper the ambition to realise childcare and thus the attractiveness of the childminding profession requires an upgrade. New and hybrid forms of conjunction of centre-based and FDC challenge stereotypes about substitute mothering and offer possibilities to reconceptualise the childcare profession. However, they do not necessarily change the subordinate position of childminders in the early childhood education and care (ECEC) field.

KEYWORDS:

• Professionalisation
• family day care
• childminders

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the academic researchers that generously shared literature and in that way contributed to this article. We thank Myriam Mony, Florence Pirard, Gabriel Schoyerer and Sandra Van der Mespel for their valuable input.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.