Abstract
Sharing the structure of the previous two chapters, the present discussion commences with an account of the care ideals and the hierarchies of care ideals that lay at the heart of care decisions for children of preschool age. The chapter then expands on the two most widely relied on care arrangements for children aged three-to-five and the rationales that underpinned parents’ choice between part-time and full-time (or, indeed, no) preschool tuition. The chapter also engages with income- and qualification-based differences in access to part-time and full-time public preschool, respectively, showing how lower-income families were often channelled towards part-time institutions through various formal and informal mechanisms, with long-term implications especially for less educated mothers’ labour market participation and employment trajectories. The chapter concludes with the argument that Romanian families with young children would welcome ECEC service expansion both for under-threes as well as for preschool-aged children in the form of universal full-time tuition.
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Notes
- 1.
Of the 49 families, seven had more than two children and nine had children older than their youngest by at least five years.
- 2.
Starting in the 2012–2013 academic year, rules for enrolling children in primary education changed. Primary school now starts with “zeroth grade” for children aged six by August 31st of that year rather than with first grade for children between ages six and seven, with parents deciding whether their child should start school at age six or seven.
- 3.
The idea that preschool was “mandatory” in that children would not be admitted into compulsory education without preschool attendance was only cited by a handful of little educated Roma parents. Preschool education has never been mandatory in Romania.
- 4.
The Hungarian term this mother used was szükségmegoldás: it does not exactly mean solution of last resort, but rather a solution borne out of necessity, hence the clumsy translation. Her emphasis was more on the absence of choice rather than on full-time preschool being, really, the worst option.
- 5.
In Hungarian lelkivilág. See ‘The maternal care ideal’ section in Chapter 5 also.
- 6.
Carers are medically trained personnel assisting children with going to the toilet, washing hands and during meals. They are especially important in mixed-age classes and those for three-to-four-year-olds.
- 7.
Serbare in Romanian, ünnepség in Hungarian, these are get-togethers of preschool classes and children’s family members, organised on specific occasions (Christmas, Mother’s Day, Easter, the end of the academic year) during the academic year, showcasing children, really. Usually comprising poems, songs and, for older children, short plays, their purpose is educational also: teach children to stand up in front of an audience and recite, sing, act.
- 8.
It is to be noted that what is called formal childcare—on a full-time or part-time basis—is, in effect, short-schedule or long-schedule preschool education. Parents also make this distinction and often seek out preschool time for its socialisation and learning opportunities. For the sake of clarity, however, preschool is somewhat mislabelled in this chapter as part-time and full-time formal childcare.
- 9.
Preschools, just as schools, tended to operate age-specific groups: the ‘small’ group, for children aged three to four, the ‘middle’ group, for children aged four to five, and the ‘big’ group, for children aged five to seven. Mixed groups were those with children aged three to seven, typical for part-time groups and full-time Hungarian tuition.
- 10.
Sunflower seeds, usually sold roasted in their shell as a snack.
- 11.
Marina was the niece of a local Roma pastor in village B., the one who also facilitated my entry into the large Roma community of this rural locality. A pastor as well as the owner of a convenience store where he also sold on credit, he was an informal community leader with significant standing, including material wealth. Marina’s parents were also considerably wealthier than most of their neighbours, with a large, refurbished house, a car, and generally entrepreneurial. In comparative terms, Marina came from one of the best families in their Roma community of around 2000, while Rosalie was a poor Roma mother without an extensive family network in a big city.
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Kovács, B. (2018). Childcare Arrangements for Preschool-Aged Children. In: Family Policy and the Organisation of Childcare. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78661-2_7
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