ABSTRACT

The major thrust of this chapter is to describe child day care in Canada in the context of Canadian history, values, political culture, and institutions. This section discusses some of the basic contextual features of Canadian social and political life in an attempt to describe what special aspects of child care are well-illustrated by considering Canada. In providing this context we present in broad strokes those unique features of day care in Canada that are developed in greater detail in the subsequent sections. The chapter also examines the historical and ideological contexts of day care in Canada. The current demography of children and families is presented as well as a description of the types of day-care programs, services, and policies currently in place. Another section focuses on the distinctive features of Canadian research on child care. Finally, a number of specific current political and social developments that will have profound impacts on day care in Canada in the coming years are identified. This final section attempts to synthesize the discrete perspectives discussed in the earlier sections into a coherent and meaningful whole and to draw some conclusions regarding both the continuing development of child care in Canada as well as to extract instructive lessons for other countries in their own design and implementation of child day-care services.