4.2 Child care: history and current developments
Historically, child care services were divided into those deemed educational and those
regarded as only providing care. Services in the former category, such as preschools,
were said to be provided for child-centred reasons (peer socialisation, opportunities for
developmental and educational experiences); those in the latter category (long day care
and family day care) were said to be meeting adult needs, particularly parental
employment. It is now generally acknowledged that good quality child care services
contain components of both care and education. Furthermore, services are more
frequently seen as addressing the needs of families, rather than pitting the needs of
parents and children against each other.
Child care services in Australia have their origins in the philanthropic activities of the
middle and upper classes. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, groups
of urban reformers established kindergartens and day . nurseries in the densely
populated inner suburbs of Australia's major cities. Although closely related, the two
forms of provision differed in some fundamental ways. Kindergartens (the precursors
of today's preschools) were intended to 'reform' working class children through