Parents' expectations, values and choice of child care

Child care settings contain people, roles, rules and relations that a child must negotiate in addition to those in the family system. Thus, the extent to which parents choose child care that complements the environment of the home is likely to influence children's adjustment in child care. The Australian Institute of Family Studies is currently conducting a study called Child Care in Cultural Context which is looking at the effects on children of differences between home and child care. Data are being collected from multiple sources on the development of children aged one to three years from Somali, Vietnamese and Anglo-Australian backgrounds attending either family day care or centre care. This article reports early findings from the study about what parents from different cultural backgrounds expect of child care, what they value in child care services, and how this may be influencing their child care decisions.