Year: 2007
Type: article
Abstract: This paper draws on the results of two qualitative research projects examining parental engagements with the childcare market in the UK. Both projects are located in the same two London localities. One project focuses on professional middle class parents, and the other on working class families, and we discuss the key importance of social class in shaping parents' differential engagement with the childcare market, and their understandings of the role childcare plays in their children's lives. We identify and discuss the different `circuits' of care available to and used by families living physically close to each other, but in social class terms living in different worlds. We also consider parents' relationships with carers, and their social networks. We conclude that, in order to fully understand childcare policies and practices and families' experiences of care, an analysis which encompasses social class and the workings of the childcare market is needed.
Source: Critical Social Policy
Authors: Carol Vincent, Annette Braun, Stephen J . Ball
Institution: University of London
Language: English
Topic: Social and Cultural Dynamics
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2139167340