The Preparation of Child Care Workers:

Abstract

This paper is based on ethnographic research conducted at an urban school that maintains a day care program. It focuses particularly upon the gulf between the students and the professionals (i.e., day care center staff), analyzing its implications and suggesting ways to solve the problem. To do this it utilizes four anthropological perspectives on the moral ordering of society. The paper examines the wider cultural sources of the training problem and then provides suggestions for its amelioration within programs for the training of child care workers.