Kaisu Peltoperä, Tanja M. Vehkakoski, Leena Turja, M. Laakso
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
This study examined how Finnish parents working non-standard hours (N=18) positioned institutional flexibly scheduled early childhood education and care (ECEC) as a link in their chain of childcare. Interview data, analysed following the principles of discursive psychology, yielded three discourses on flexibly scheduled ECEC: the discourse of the child’s best interest, the discourse of the labour market, and the discourse of equality of opportunity for the child. Flexibly scheduled ECEC was positioned in these discourses either as the last resort option for childcare, a safe haven for the child, a societal service enabling parents to work during non-standard hours or as a place for children’s learning. It is important to recognise the origins of these discourses and reflect on them to improve ECEC services, so that they meet the demands of safety as a link in the chain of childcare and increase the level of parental satisfaction with them.
期刊介绍:
Families, Relationships and Societies (FRS) is a vibrant social science journal advancing scholarship and debates in the field of families and relationships. It explores family life, relationships and generational issues across the life course. Bringing together a range of social science perspectives, with a strong policy and practice focus, it is also strongly informed by sociological theory and the latest methodological approaches. The title ''Families, Relationships and Societies'' encompasses the fluidity, complexity and diversity of contemporary social and personal relationships and their need to be understood in the context of different societies and cultures. International and comprehensive in scope, FRS covers a range of theoretical, methodological and substantive issues, from large scale trends, processes of social change and social inequality to the intricacies of family practices. It welcomes scholarship based on theoretical, qualitative or quantitative analysis. High quality research and scholarship is accepted across a wide range of issues. Examples include family policy, changing relationships between personal life, work and employment, shifting meanings of parenting, issues of care and intimacy, the emergence of digital friendship, shifts in transnational sexual relationships, effects of globalising and individualising forces and the expansion of alternative ways of doing family. Encouraging methodological innovation, and seeking to present work on all stages of the life course, the journal welcomes explorations of relationships and families in all their different guises and across different societies.