좋은 어린이집의 의미

Listening to Voice from Teachers and Mothers:Stakeholder Perspectives of Quality in Child Care Centers

This study aimed to find the meaning of quality child care centers from the perspectives of teachers and mothers. The participants in this study are 10 teachers from five child care centers in Daegu and 11 mothers who had their children enrolled in child care centers in Daegu. The data for the study was mainly collected from individual interviews with the participants. The findings reveal that the participants have a variety of perspectives on the topic within and between the groups but all the participants emphasize the same aspects as good teachers and open child care curriculum in defining quality child care centers. In addition, while the teacher participants think that child care centers should be considered as public schools and individual needs should be adjusted for all the children in the center, the mother participants wanted individual needs to be considered prior to those of the whole class. This study suggests that all the groups involved in child care should be reminded that teachers and mothers have different perspectives on the meaning of quality child care centers and the parties concerned should make a consistent effort to improve the quality of child care through meaning-making processes by understanding and respecting each other’s values, experience, and perspectives.