Early years in the uk context Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Early years in the uk context - Essay Example (Shaw, 2010) The article tries to find the factors which are responsible for these choices and how the choices of working class parents differ from middle class parents. The authors have used interviews as the research methodology in trying to answer this question. The authors believe that the way in which choices are made by the working class and middle class parents make choices further produces inequities. (Carol Vincent, 2010)They also differentiate in the way these choices are made and the factors which are considered before making the choices. In conclusion the authors claim that working class families give importance to the known , familiar and trusted sources for choosing childcare whereas middle class families were more open to childcare centres which may be lesser known to them. The overarching concern for the working class parents is shown as safety for their kids whereas the middle class parents do not care much about the safety -they consider it as a given. Their main fo cus is on the environment the child is provided with and his personal development. The authors also show how economic status of the families makes them perceive and experience the child care markets in a different way. (Carol Vincent, 2010) The very first analysis which comes to the mind of this article is the research methodology which is used. ... This may have left out a large section of the population which may not indulge in such a large amount of research to choose childcare as is shown in the article. (Kumar, 2008) Thus general assumptions about middle class and working class attitudes to childcare cannot be made from such an unrepresentative sample. The second problem is that of false responses. (Kumar, 2008) It is a well known fact that what people actually do differs a lot from what they say in interviews. The results would be much more reliable if interviews were followed by observations of behaviour. The third problem is acknowledged by the authors but they fail to mention how they countered it. This is the problem of interviewer bias. As interview was conducted by white middle class females; the responses of working class mothers could suffer from a bias towards the interviewer. Also the interviewer may have interpreted the response in a way which is completely different from what the working class parents intended to. (Patel, 1964) The authors claim in their article that middle class parents are the more informed consumers in the child care market. They research a large number of options before settling on the childcare. As opposed to this working class parents are shown to be less aware and less informed about the options that they have. However the authors do not stop at telling the behaviour but also try to identify the reason for the behaviour and the reason that they have identified is spot on and absolutely right. The choices in childcare market are available only to those who have money to shell out. (Leach, 2009) .Although the problem of expensive child