The Environment as Organizer of Intent in Child-Care Settings

Abstract

Once upon a time, even before Head Start was invented, we set out to look at the kinds of day care used by working mothers. Since virtually nothing was known about child-care arrangements at the time—except that there was not enough of it and that more was needed—we began by looking at a wide variety of centers. Their names gave some indication of their origins, sponsorship, and hopes for children. The old-time nurseries were often named for saints and were typically in old buildings, whereas the centers located on elementary-school sites usually bore unobtrusive street names. The privately owned centers sometimes had dignified names such as Miss Baines’ School (the word school was often featured prominently in the title). Others were more colorfully named: Fairyland; Cherubs’ Chalet; Kiddie Park; Kiddie College; even Kiddie Koop. Although we did not see it originally, eventually we came to identify some spatial patterns that fit certain categories of names.