Child care regulation lies at the heart of one of the thorniest and most fundamental social policy issues, namely private versus public responsibility for childrearing. As a consequence, political discussions of child care regulation are rarely guided by theories of child development or research on components of child care quality. They are characterized instead by heated controversy about working mothers, the importance of family privacy, and social-classlinked conceptions of appropriate childrearing environments.This chapter examines the multiple and conflicting influences-empirical, ideological, and political-that have shaped the history of federal child care regulation. Three central themes are elaborated: the persistent ambivalence about any federal involvement in child care; the variety of social functions served by child care and their differing implications for efforts to establish standards of quality; and the pervasive influence of ideological arguments on the fate of proposals for federal child care regulation. Contemporary issues and initiatives are then discussed in light of families' unprecedented reliance on child care and the reemergence of concerns about the safety of available arrangements.This chapter is not strictly speaking a review of research. It earns its place in this volume as an illustration of a policy area-quality issues in child care-that is directly compatible with the thrust of most developmental research on child care, yet on which ideology rather than research has had the The authors would like to acknowledge their special indebtedness to the scholarship of J. R. Nelson, and to thank Peggy Pizzo for her valuable comments on the manuscript. 3 at SIMON FRASER LIBRARY on June 15, 2015 http://rre.aera.net Downloaded from 4
Review of Research in Education, 14greatest impact. Child care policy thus poses a challenge to researchers interested in enhancing collaboration between science and policy development. The resurgence of interest in child care quality holds vast opportunities for researchers interested in examining new facets of child care. In particular, policy developments point to the value of studying new settings, such as infant and school-age programs; new outcomes, such as perceived competence, peer relations and motivation to learn; and new populations, such as abused and special needs children. Collaborative studies among researchers and practitioners also hold the potential for a richer database on the developmental, familial, and social consequences of child care (Aber, Molnar, & Phillips, 1987). If used to advantage, these opportunities may revitalize the study of child care and reveal new answers to enduring policy questions about this important social service for children and families.There is no coherent federal debate about child care regulation, just as there is no coherent set of national public policies about child care. Instead, available child care services constitute an uncoordinated patchwork of programs, funded from a host of different sources, that serve fr...