10-year anniversary of the Child Care Reforms in Quebec
A group of sessions at the ACFAS Conference in Trois-Rivieres (organized by Prof. Nathalie Bigras, UQAM) was organized to assess and evaluate different aspects of this major set of policy reforms. With some translation help, I gave a prerecorded speech in French at this conference. Have a look at the slides for this speech, or at the text of the speech itself (in French, or in English), about the Benefits and Costs of the new system of Centres de la Petite Enfances.
Conference in Halifax
Set Sail for Quality on an Ocean of Caring, in Halifax, NS, June 15-17, 2007. The conference is presented by the
Canadian Child Care Federation, its Nova Scotia affiliates, the Centre for Excellence in Early Child Development, the Knowledge Centre on Early Child Development and others.
The conference intends to explore new and innovative approaches to enrich the quality of our ELCC programs.
Confirmed speakers include John Bennett, Peter Moss, Judith Bernhard, Margaret Carr, Alan Pence, and Richard Tremblay.
European Forum on Early Care and Education - Prague. Aug 29-Sept 1, 2007
The 17th EECERA Annual Conference will explore the work of the renowned Belarussian developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky and the impact of his ideas on current research and practice worldwide.
Organized by the European Early Childhood Education Research Association in collaboration with the International Step by Step Association, the conference welcomes proposals and interested participants from Eastern and Western Europe and from around the globe.
As Vygotsky’s theories moved from the East to the West, they were understood and applied differently in different contexts, countries, and cultures. The conference symbol of branches growing and blossoming represents the varied paths ideas take and their realization over time.
Check out the home site of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit, University of Toronto www.childcarecanada.org
Welcome! Here you will find economic research papers on Early Childhood Education and Care (also called child care, or Early Learning and Child Care). I am an economist at the University of Toronto at Scarborough, and what you will find here is the research that interests me.
1. NEW REPORT on Nonprofit and For-Profit Child Care Centres in Canada
This is the final report of a 3-year project studying nonprofit and for-profit child care centres in Canada, by Gordon Cleveland, Barry Forer, Douglas Hyatt, Christa Japel and Michael Krashinsky. The focus has been to establish whether and under what conditions nonprofit operation of centres will lead to higher quality services. The authors use four different data sets to answer the question. Here is a very brief summary. And here are a few chosen excerpts from the Final Report. However, Chapter Two of the report provides a more fulsome summary. The report analyzes data from You Bet I Care! (six provinces and one territory), Grandir en Qualite (Quebec), the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (or ELDEQ; Quebec), and data from the City of Toronto. It includes a reasonably comprehensive survey of relevant literature and information about nonprofit and for-profit child care in other countries.
Click here to get an electronic copy of the Final Report.
2. CANADA-WIDE POLL BY CPAC: Widespread support for universal, taxpayer-funded, pre-school child care system
A recent poll found only 14% of Canadians strongly opposed to universal, publicly-funded child care and another 10% somewhat opposed. 62% of Canadians were either somewhat or strongly in favour of funding a child care system for pre-school children.
Child Care for a Change! Shaping the 21st Century: WINNIPEG CONFERENCE MATERIALS
3. Slides for a Presentation to the "Winnipeg" Conference (in the form of a letter to Minister Ken Dryden)
Financing Canada's Child Care System: A Letter to Ken
4. Conference Paper: Financing Early Learning and Child Care in Canada
Download a copy of the paper by Gordon Cleveland and Michael Krashinsky
"Apart from Quebec’s recently-developed system and kindergartens
in the schools, early childhood care in Canada is a market service,
supplemented by the subsidization of low-income families. Because of
the public benefits from providing appropriate developmental care for
our young children and positive supports to employment for young families,
early learning and child care should be a publicly-financed service.
This financing must be provided in a way that supports services, is
carefully monitored and publicly accountable, distributes benefits equitably,
and spends scarce public resources efficiently..."
5. SPEECH to the Institute for Research on Public Policy Roundtable - "Assessing Family Policy in Canada"
Download the IRPP speech in PDF format.
Download (from the IRPP web site) the audio web cast or the roundtable program.