Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-04T04:57:23.319Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Choice’ Discourse in BC Child Care: Distancing Policy from Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 August 2005

Paul Kershaw
Paul Kershaw
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Abstract. The gap between child care research and policy is growing in BC. While policy changes are what one would expect from the right-of-centre Liberal government, the gap runs contrary to its expressed commitment to the design of early childhood development policy on the basis of ‘science.’ The BC child care domain thus provides a rich context in which to examine how ideology mediates the consumption of research in the political arena. This article argues that the government's ‘choice’ discourse facilitates the articulation of neoliberal principles in a rhetorically neutral way while casting doubt on scholarship that illuminates gender and class inequalities.

Résumé. L'écart entre les recherches au sujet de soins d'enfant et la politique s'élargit en Colombie-Britannique. Pendant qu'on prévoit ces changements d'un gouvernement libéral droit-du-centre, l'écart dément son engagement de concevoir la politique de development de la petite enfance d'après la “science”. Ainsi la domaine de soins d'enfant en Colombie-Britannique fournit un contexte riche pour examiner comment l'idéologie s'interpose dans la consommation de recherches dans l'arène politique. Cet article soutient que la soi-disant dialogue de “choix” du gouvernement facilite l'articulation des principes néolibéraux d'une manière neutraliste pendant qu'on soulève du doute à l'érudition qui illumine des inégalités de genre et de classe sociale.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , December 2004 , pp. 927 - 950
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baril, Robert, Pierre Lefebvre, and Philip Merrigan. 2000. “Québec Family Policy: Impact and Options.” Choices 6: 1–52.Google Scholar
Baum, Charles. 2002. “A Dynamic Analysis of the Effect of Child Care Costs on the Work Decisions of Low-Income Mothers with Infants.” Demography 39: 139–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beach, Jane, Jane Bertrand, and Gordon Cleveland. 1998. Our Child Care Workforce. Ottawa: Child Care Human Resources Steering Committee.
Berrueta-Clement, John, Lawrence Schweinhart, W. Steven Barnett, Ann Epstein, and David Weikart. 1984. Changed Lives: The Effects of the Perry Preschool Program on Youths Through Age 19. Ypsilanti, MI: High/Scope Educational Research Foundation.
Bradshaw, Jonathan, and Naomi Finch. 2002. A Comparison of Child Benefit Packages in 22 Countries. Research Report No. 174. UK Department for Work and Pensions.
British Columbia, Legislative Assembly. Debates. July 26, 2001: 1135–40.
Brodie, Janine. 1995. Politics on the Margins. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.
Cleveland, Gordon, Morley Gunderson, and Douglas Hyatt. 1996. “Child Care Costs and the Employment Decisions of Women: Canadian Evidence.” Canadian Journal of Economics 29: 132–51.Google Scholar
Cleveland, Gordon, and Douglas Hyatt. 2002. “Child care workers' wages: New evidence on returns to education, experience, job tenure and auspice.” Journal of Population Economics 15: 575–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cleveland, Gordon, and Michael Krashinsky. 1998. The Benefits and Costs of Good Child Care. Toronto: Childcare Resource and Research Unit, Centre for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto.
Daune-Richard, Anne-Marie, and Rianne Mahon. 2001. “Sweden: Model in Crisis.” In Who Cares?, eds. Jane Jenson and Mariette Sineau. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Doherty, Gillian, Donna Lero, Hillel Goelman, Annette LaGrange, and Jocelyne Tougas. 2000a. You Bet I Care! Caring and Learning Environments: Quality in Regulated Family Child Care Across Canada. Guelph, Ont.: Centre for Families, Work and Well Being, University of Guelph.
Doherty, Gillian, Donna Lero, Hillel Goelman, Annette LaGrange, and Jocelyne Tougas. 2000b. You Bet I Care! A Canada-wide Study on: Wages, Working Conditions, and Practices in Child Care Centres. Guelph, Ont.: Centre for Families, Work and Well Being, University of Guelph.
Forer, Barry, and Theresa Hunter. 2001. 2001 Provincial Child Care Survey: Final Report. Victoria: MCAWS, Child Care Policy Branch.
Goelman, Hillel, Gillian Doherty, Donna Lero, Annette LaGrange, and Jocelyne Tougas. 2000. You Bet I Care! Caring and Learning Environments: Quality in Child Care Centres Across Canada. Guelph, Ont.: Centre for Families, Work and Well Being, University of Guelph.
Groeneveld, Bob, and Erin McKay. 2002. “Poor Choices Create Inequality.” Langley Advance News, February 19, 30.
Helburn, Susan, ed. 1995. Cost, Quality and Child Outcomes in Child Care Centres: Technical Report. Denver: Department of Economics, University of Colorado at Denver.
Jenson, Jane, and Mariette Sineau. 2001. Who Cares? Women's Work, Childcare and Welfare State Redesign. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Kimmel, Jean. 1998. “Child Care Costs as a Barrier to Employment for Single and Married Mothers.” Review of Economics and Statistics 80: 287–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kremer, Monique. 2002. “The Illusion of Free Choice: Ideals of Care and Child Care Policy in the Flemish and Dutch Welfare States.” In Child Care Policy at the Crossroads, eds. Sonya Michel and Rianne Mahon. New York: Routledge.
Lavoie, Judy. 2002. “Child Care Dilemma: Parents Face Unsavoury Choices After Province Slashes Subsidy.” Victoria Times Colonist, June 10, A1.
Laycock, David. 2002. The New Right and Democracy in Canada. Don Mills, Ont.: Oxford University Press.
Marques-Pereira, Bérengère, and Olivier Paye. 2001. “Belgium: The Vices and Virtues of Pragmatism.” In Who Cares?, eds. Jane Jenson and Mariette Sineau. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
McInnes, Craig. 2003. “Victoria's Restructuring Creating Some Winners and Losers.” The Vancouver Sun, January 4, B4.
Michel, Sonya, and Rianne Mahon, eds. 2002. Child Care Policy at the Crossroads: Gender and Welfare State Restructuring. New York: Routledge.
Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women's Services (MCAWS). 2003. “More Families Will Receive Child-Care Subsidy.” News Release, no. 2003MCAWS0022-000157, February 12.
MCAWS. 2002a. “Child-Care Funding Benefits More Providers, Families.” News Release, no. 2002MCAWS0065-001017, November 27.
MCAWS. 2002b. “Child-Care Operating Funding Program Launched.” Backgrounder, no. 2002MCAWS0065-001017, November 27.
Ministry of Human Resources (MHR). 2002a. “Child Care Subsidy Program: Procedures Manual” (updated October 2002). Victoria: MHR.
MHR. 2002b. “Ministry of Human Resources Service Plan Summary: 2002/03–2004/05.” Victoria: MHR.
Morgan, Kimberly. 2002. “Does Anyone Have a ‘Libre Choix’? Subversive Liberalism and the Politics of French Child Care Policy.” In Child Care Policy at the Crossroads, eds. Sonya Michel and Rianne Mahon. New York: Routledge.
O'Connor, Alice. 2001. Poverty Knowledge. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Philipps, Lisa. 1996. “Discursive Deficits: A Feminist Perspective on the Power of Technical Knowledge in Fiscal Law and Policy.” Canadian Journal of Law and Society 11: 141–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powell, Lisa M. 1997. “The Impact of Child Care Costs on the Labour Supply of Married Mothers: Evidence from Canada.” Canadian Journal of Economics 30: 577–94.Google Scholar
Ribar, David C. 1995. “A Structural Model of Child Care and the Labor Supply of Married Women.” Journal of Labor Economics 13: 558–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sainsbury, Diane., ed. 1994. Gendering Welfare States. London: Sage Publications.
Statistics Canada. 2000. Women in Canada 2000: A Gender-Based Statistical Report. Cat. No. 89-503-XPE Ottawa: Statistics Canada: Housing, Family and Social Statistics Division.
Stephens, Lynn. 2002. “We want to see ‘fair and equitable system of child-care funding’.” The Province (Vancouver), November 21, A19.
Teghtsoonian, Katherine. 1996. “Promises, Promises: ‘Choices for Women’ in Canadian and American Child Care Policy Debates.” Feminist Studies 22: 119–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teghtsoonian, Katherine. 1993. “Neo-Conservative Ideology and Opposition to Federal Regulation of Child Care Services in the United States and Canada.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 26: 97–121.Google Scholar