gender, work, and child care

Abstract

Downloaded from journal of early childhood research 6(1) 32 and education, and qualitative and policy-oriented research methodologies, more generally.This interpretation of Sally's message to us about the topics of gender, work, and child care utilizes her own language, to the extent possible. Interpretations made are of course mine and not hers, though I have made an attempt to be faithful to what she (and co-authors) appeared to be stating. The article ends with my own conclusions related to some of the lessons we might take from her work as we move further into the 21st century -a period of cultural uncertainty and anxiety but also one fi lled with new openings and possibilities related to childhood, education, families, and their relations with societies around the world. the personal and professionalSally Lubeck's research and my own included many shared areas and experiences over a 25-year period. This exploration of her work thus incorporates discussions we had related to different cross-national policies, and within the context of family support policies present in the USA during the last quarter of the 20th century. Unavoidable, in this article as in most writing and research, the personal and political are intertwined, and so, too, were our personal, professional and political lives -as friends and colleagues as well as academics and parentsbalancing our various types of work and pleasures with our children over time (e.g. see Bloch, 1998).Sally was committed to greater 'progress' in rethinking or reconceptualizing policy for families and for societies, both in the USA, and elsewhere. She understood, in addition, that this reconceptualization has to take account of the myriad contexts in which policy decisions take place and are enacted, including the context of an increasingly globalized, uncertain, postmodern, and interconnected world.Sally Lubeck had a background in psychological studies of early childhood education and child care, as well as a deep interest in anthropological studies of childhood. She had a deep appreciation for cross-cultural studies of childhood and child care and education worldwide, as well as an appreciation of the need to understand how the shaping of policies, particularly within and across nations had to be understood within particular cultural and historical backgrounds of the nations or the communities she was studying. Sally, in addition, held a deep respect for different ways of knowing, the importance of bringing interdisciplinary knowledge, theories, and methods together to attempt to understand problems and to analyze possibilities for solutions.She, along with others, brought multiple critical theoretical lenses to bear on early education and child care, on child development and even on Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP) guidelines that have so dominated discussions of at WESTERN OREGON UNIVERSITY on