Abstract
Abstract Multiple types of child care are exempt from government licensure or regulation in the United States, yet previous research has shown that stricter adherence to regulatory standards predicts higher quality programs. This study compares global child care quality and teacher-child interaction quality in church-sponsored child care centers that are legally-exempt from licensure and operate at three regulatory levels. Observations were completed in 59 church-sponsored, center-based child care programs. Centers that voluntarily followed stricter levels of regulation had higher quality. The findings have implications for policymakers and legislators who create and implement child care standards and subsidy policies.
Highlights
Families should be able to trust that established institutions like government, churches, and child care centers are overseeing the provision of safe and nurturing care and education environments for young children
Because there are no limits on child group size and there are no mandated inspections accounting for the number of children present, it is unknown how many children attend these legally-exempt unlicensed centers, and there is no available demographic information describing the children attending. This study examines these three regulation levels permitted for church-sponsored child care centers in Indiana
A major contribution of this study was the deliberate exploration of quality in legally license-exempt centerbased child care
Summary
Families should be able to trust that established institutions like government, churches, and child care centers are overseeing the provision of safe and nurturing care and education environments for young children. This is not always the case, and not all child care is government-regulated in the United States. There are no unified child care quality standards across the 50 states, nor even within a single state. We do know from previous research that programs that adhere to governmental regulations tend to be of higher quality than centers where standards are lax or few in numbers. We know that higher quality child care leads to more positive, longer lasting outcomes for children and that there are larger quality effects for children from low-income homes
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