Child Care Development Research Articles

Care for Child Development: an intervention in support of responsive caregiving and early child development.

An estimated 43% of children younger than 5years of age are at elevated risk of failing to achieve their human potential. In response, the World Health Organization and UNICEF developed Care for Child Development (CCD), based on the science of child development, to improve sensitive and responsive caregiving and promote the psychosocial development of young children. In 2015, the World Health Organization and UNICEF identified sites where CCD has been implemented and sustained. The sites were surveyed, and responses were followed up by phone interviews. Project reports provided information on additional sites, and a review of published studies was undertaken to document the effectiveness of CCD for improving child and family outcomes, as well as its feasibility for implementation in resource-constrained communities. The inventory found that CCD had been integrated into existing services in diverse sectors in 19 countries and 23 sites, including child survival, health, nutrition, infant day care, early education, family and child protection and services for children with disabilities. Published and unpublished evaluations have found that CCD interventions can improve child development, growth and health, as well as responsive caregiving. It has also been reported to reduce maternal depression, a known risk factor for poor pregnancy outcomes and poor child health, growth and development. Although CCD has expanded beyond initial implementation sites, only three countries reported having national policy support for integrating CCD into health or other services. Strong interest exists in many countries to move beyond child survival to protect and support optimal child development. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals depend on children realizing their potential to build healthy and emotionally, cognitively and socially competent future generations. More studies are needed to guide the integration of the CCD approach under different conditions. Nevertheless, the time is right to provide for the scale-up of CCD as part of services for families and children.

Fostering hope and career adaptability in children's career development

ABSTRACTToday's children, more than ever, will live their life trajectories with indistinct and/or elusive maps, and must find their own ways of being in this world. While finding one's way of being in the world is difficult enough, it is even more challenging for children experiencing barriers and lack of opportunities, often resulting from oppressive forces. Nurturing children's hope and career adaptability can help support, sustain, and prepare them for successful lives as they navigate this ever-changing world. In this article, the author explores hope theory and the construct of career adaptability from career construction theory to inform and stimulate the promotion of childhood career development and life design, while also identifying potential avenues to help deconstruct and mitigate oppressive messaging and forces that can be absorbed early in life, often unconsciously.

Evaluation of a career counselling program focused on Greek elementary school children's career interests

Although childhood is the most significant period in one's career development process, little research attention has been paid to the evaluation of career counselling intervention programs in elementary-aged children. An intervention study was carried out in order to evaluate a career counselling program implemented in one Greek elementary school which focused on the enrichment of the children's career interests. The research methodology used was the quasi experimental research design. Children (N = 84) aged 8-11 years were distributed in experimental and control groups. Τhe impact of the intervention focused on the enrichment of their career interests, which was assessed via semi-structured interviews and use of drawings. The results showed a statistical significant difference between groups concerning children's career interests after intervention, while the analysis of drawings revealed more differences in self-confidence, self- esteem and extraversion in favour of the children that participated in the experimental group. Gender and age differences were also explored and revealed. The results are discussed in relation to various aspects of children's career development, as well as to the significance of career counselling intervention programs.

Ecology of Children's Career Development: A Review of the Literature

ABSTRACT Previous efforts to elaborate an organizing framework for the study of children's career development identified its main dimensions and processes. However, the existing literature on children's ecological subsystems is scarce. This article presents a literature review of the context of children's career development. Based on Bronfenbrenner's theory, 36 eligible articles covered the following subjects: the microsystems family and school; the mesosystems family-school/peer-school relations and antecedents of transitions; the exosystems parents' work situation, social class, curriculum and teachers' professional development; the macrosystems ethnicity and culture; and the chronosystems passage of time over the life-course and across generations. An ecological perspective can be included in an organizing framework of children's careers and support further research and intervention. Empirical and practical implications are discussed.

Evolving stories of child career development

Herein, the contributions to this special issue and positions the field of child career development in terms of its past, present, and future are considered. There is an initial brief overview of past developments in the field, specifically as described in seminal reviews. The article then considers the present status of and future agenda for the field in relation to four identified themes: advances in child career development theory; innovations in practice and assessment related to child career development; child career development in diverse settings; and policy implications of child career development theory, research and practice. The article concludes by proposing seven directions for future research in child career development.

Child career development: present and future trends

There has been an understanding for centuries that the foundations of adolescent and adult development lie in childhood. Thus, the seventeenth century poet, John Milton, stated (in the gender restricted language of those times) that ‘‘childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day’’ (Milton, 1671, lines 220–221 in Kerrigan, Rumrich, & Fallon, 2007). The discipline of career psychology has long recognised the importance of childhood in lifespan career development. Indeed, the more recent theoretical development of life design argues that ‘‘factors central to life design, such as career exploration, career awareness, occupational aspirations, and expectations, vocational interests, and career adaptability begin during the childhood years’’ (Hartung, 2015, p. 90). The theoretical recognition of career development beginning in childhood has not resulted, however, in a substantive and cohesive body of literature. True, the last decade has produced several reviews and a book, but a search of PsycINFO for the years 1995–2015 using the keywords of career development and children reveals the limited emphasis on this lifespan stage. For instance, while there have been 2662 articles on career development between 1995 and 2005, only 88 articles (representing three percent of the total) have specifically focused on children. In the following decade from 2006 to date only 124 articles (again representing three percent of the total) out of 3879 articles on career development focused on children.

Parental Influence on Child Career Development in Mainland China: A Qualitative Study

Compared with adolescents and adults, there is little research that examines child career development and especially how parents might influence such development. This is especially true in Mainland China, where family life is highly valued. This study used interpretative phenomenological analysis to examine how Mainland Chinese parents influence the career development of their 5th‐grade children. Six superordinate themes were identified from both the children's and the parents' perspectives: responding to career curiosity, influence on career gender stereotypes, emphasizing the importance of education, encouraging independent career decision making, providing opportunities for career interest development, and mothers as career role models. Suggestions are offered for future career development learning programs and research.

Educational differences in fathers’ time with children in two parent families: Time diary evidence from the United States

This paper examines educational differences in fathers’ time spent in primary and secondary childcare activities using the American Time Use Survey (2003–2013). Compared to fathers with lower educational attainment, well-educated fathers spend more engaged time with their children, where a child is the main center of attention. Although highly educated fathers are not more accessible to their children than fathers with less education, they spend more time in developmental childcare activities associated with positive outcomes for children. The effect of fathers’ education on time spent in routine childcare is completely explained by spouse’s education, whereas father’s time in managerial or developmental childcare activities is hardly affected. Overall, the results indicate distinct fathering practices by educational attainment, some of which are explained by spouse’s education.

Parent–child career construction: A narrative study from a gender perspective

Nine families composed of mother and father, one son and one daughter were involved in this study to examine the role played by parents on children's career development from a gender perspective. In particular, this paper addresses the questions of how the parent–child dyad constructs stories about the child's career and the role played in it by the parent, and how same-sex dyads versus opposite-sex shape these stories. The narrative method was used as it lends itself to capturing family members storytelling about children's career. A narrative interview was administered to thirty-six participants with the data being analyzed using the adaptation of a tried-and-tested narrative analysis procedure. The findings show the importance of same-sex dyads in constructing career stories, plotted around themes of father–son educational and occupational transmission and mother–daughter alliance in facilitating girls' self-making. The study shows how storytelling helps family members to accommodate disruptions experienced during career transitions and to motivate choices that make vocational identity more stable. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

Marginalisation of Exceptional Children in the Provision of Carreer Guidance and Counnselling Servicves in Schools in Masvingo District, Zimbabwe

The purpose of this study was to explore the extent at which career guidance and counseling is provided to exceptional pupils in Masvingo District of Zimbabwe. It is a fact that exceptional children have been marginalized in a wide variety of educational service provision. The study therefore sought to explore whether exceptional children are also not being marginalized in the provision of career services as much as they have been marginalized in other areas. The research employed qualitative exploratory survey research design. The target population for this study included all special schools and schools with resource units in Masvingo District, together with officers from Schools Psychological Services and Special Needs Education Masvingo Provincial Office. The research indicated that service providers have generally low expectations on the career development of exceptional children. As a result of these low expectations, it was found out that career transition planning and assistance for special children is minimal at the very least. In keeping with these low expectations, it was found out that there were no specialist human resources dedicated to providing career counseling, and that only teachers are much more involved in this endeavor but they have minimal training to provide a satisfactory career counseling service. The research proposes that in the short term teachers be trained to provide efficient career counseling services. In the medium and long term, government should provide resources so that Schools Psychologists are capacitated so that they get involved in vocational assessment and career counseling of exceptional children. Lastly further research on the provision of career counseling for exceptional children should be carried out at a larger scale with a bigger, more representative sample and possibly employing both quantitative and qualitative research methods.

Vocational knowledge in rural children: A study of individual differences and predictors of occupational aspirations and expectations

Few studies have identified individual differences in vocational knowledge or its association with career aspirations or expectations of children. We investigated whether individual differences in grade, gender, academic achievement, and SES predict levels of vocational knowledge, and further examined the relationship between vocational knowledge and career aspirations and expectations. Children in the fourth through seventh grades (N=132) from two rural school districts were administered measures of vocational knowledge, expectations, and aspirations. The results of this study suggest no differences in vocational knowledge in groups differing in grade, gender, and SES; however, academic achievement was a significant predictor of vocational knowledge. Moreover, results of regression analysis demonstrated that vocational knowledge adds significantly to the prediction of career aspirations and expectations. These results contribute to the emerging literature exploring mechanisms involved in the career development of rural children.

Career development during childhood and adolescence

Identity development is central to the career development of children and adolescents. This article reviews the literature pertaining to identity development as being composed of career exploration, commitment, and reconsideration and offers some implications for career interventions.

Care for Child Development: Basic Science Rationale and Effects of Interventions

The past few years have witnessed increasing interest in devising programs to enhance early childhood development. We review current understandings of brain development, recent advances in this field, and their implications for clinical interventions. An expanding body of basic science laboratory data demonstrates that several interventions, including environmental enrichment, level of parental interaction, erythropoietin, antidepressants, transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial direct current stimulation, hypothermia, nutritional supplements, and stem cells, can enhance cerebral plasticity. Emerging clinical data, using functional magnetic resonance imaging and clinical evaluations, also support the hypothesis that clinical interventions can increase the developmental potential of children, rather than merely allowing the child to achieve an already predetermined potential. Such interventions include early developmental enrichment programs, which have improved cognitive function; high-energy and high-protein diets, which have increased brain growth in infants with perinatal brain damage; constraint-induced movement therapy, which has improved motor function in patients with stroke, cerebral palsy, and cerebral hemispherectomy; and transcranial magnetic stimulation, which has improved motor function in stroke patients.

Occupational Aspirations of Low Socioeconomic Black South African Children

There has been a call for a more systematic research focus on the career development of children from diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, with the viewpoint that children’s career development research needs to be contextually grounded in the countries and cultures where such development occurs. This article describes the occupational aspirations (in terms of typology and status level) of Black South African upper elementary school children of low socioeconomic status. A nonprobability convenience sample of 274 children (157 females, 117 males) from Grades 5 and 6 participated. Two open-ended questions from the Revised Career Awareness Survey were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results revealed that most children aspired to social and investigative type occupations, with over 80% aspiring to high status occupations. There were few gender differences. The implications of the findings as well as practical considerations in researching more disadvantaged populations are discussed.

Children's Career Development: Metaphorical Images of Theory, Research, and Practice

This summative article discusses 5 invited contributions on children's career development. The authors of these articles were asked to consider the status quo of children's career development, issues facing this field, and future directions. Several emergent themes focused on theory, research, and practice and their interactive potential in children's career development. Suggestions for future direction in the study of children's career development include the need for greater contextualization and interdisciplinary collaboration, the revision and innovation of theory, and the need for organizing frameworks for theory, research, and practice.

Children's Career Development: Status Quo and Future Directions

The disparate nature of children's career development literature at present (Watson & McMahon, 2004) reinforces the need to revisit Gysbers's (1996) challenges in order to create a more comprehensive understanding of the career development of children, both intra- and interdevelopmentally.

From Childhood to Adulthood: A 15‐Year Longitudinal Career Development Study

In 1987, 208 second graders were interviewed about their occupational aspirations and expectations, school likes and dislikes, educational plans, and other variables. They were reinterviewed every 2 years through senior year in high school. A 5‐year post‐high school follow‐up was conducted, and 35 young adults (23 years old) from the original sample completed a detailed questionnaire. Young adults reported significantly less career direction and preparation in high school than they did as seniors in high school. Comparisons between 3 generations within the same families were conducted on educational and occupational achievement. The importance of teachers and parents in children's career development is discussed.

The realism and sex type of four- to five-year-old children's occupational aspirations

Research on career development has focused primarily on adolescents and adults. However, in Gottfredson's theory of circumscription and compromise (2002) it is proposed that career aspirations originate in the preschool years and that the earliest work aspirations of children are sex typed in relation to the activities of same sex adults. This article investigates young children's career development in the context of Gottfredson's stage theory. Eighty-four children attending a kindergarten/early learning centre for four- to five-year-old children exhibited sex typing of their aspirations, with the vast majority nominating real occupational roles as opposed to fantasy ones, as aspirations for adult life. The pattern of boys' and girls' aspirations differentially support Gottfredson's proposals. Questions are raised concerning the stability of patterns of aspirations in terms of sex type in a changing society.

Children’s career development: A research review from a learning perspective

Recent advances in career theory have resulted in widespread acceptance of the lifespan perspective on development. However, a review of research and practice conducted during 2001 revealed that little attention has been paid to the career development of children ( Whiston & Brecheisen, 2002). In response to calls for a greater concentration on this important stage in the lifespan, the present article uses learning as a unifying theme to structure a research review of career development in children. This theme highlights the need to understand more holistically the influences on and the process of career development learning in children. The learning framework accommodates the dynamic and interactional nature of career development and suggests the need for dual focus research that examines the what and the how of children’s career development learning.

Children's Career Development: A Metatheoretical Perspective

Career development is regarded as a lifespan process; however, the career development of children has received little theoretical and research attention. This article reflects on the breadth and depth of understandings about children's career development from the metatheoretical perspective of the Systems Theory Framework of career development (Patton & McMahon, 1999). The relationship between career development literature and career practice for children is discussed.