TABLE 1
SOURCE: Table adapted from Ellen Peisner-Feinberg, Margaret R. Burchinal, Richard M. Clifford, Noreen Yazejian, Mary L. Culkin,
J. Zelazo, Carolee Howes, Patricia Byler, Sharon Lynn Kagan, and Jean Rustici. The Children of the Cost, Quality, and Outcomes
Study Go to School Technical Report. Chapel Hill: Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center, 2000.
factors were controlled for, few differences between
the groups existed. Comparisons showed that chil-
dren in high quality care sometimes scored higher
than children in exclusive maternal care, and chil-
dren in low quality care sometimes scored lower.
More frequently than not, however, children in exclu-
sive maternal care and children in day care scored
similarly on cognitive measures.
Effects on Social Development
The effects of day care on social development are
also associated with care quality. The CQO study
found that children in higher quality day care had
more positive attitudes about themselves, their rela-
tionships with peers were more positive, and their so-
cial skills were more advanced than were those in
lower quality care. Further, the quality of the day care
they had attended continued to be related to their so-
cial development in the early school years. Children
who had close relationships with their day-care pro-
viders were rated as more sociable through kinder-
garten and as having fewer problem behaviors
through second grade than children whose relation-
ships with their day-care providers were not close.
Also, children who had more positive classroom cli-
mates in day care were found to have better relation-
ships with their peers in second grade. The NICHD
study similarly found that care quality was associated
with children’s social development. However, they
also noted that family characteristics, especially moth-
er’s sensitivity, were more strongly associated with
children’s behavior than their day-care experience
(e.g., age of entry into care and care type).
One specific concern that the NICHD study ad-
dressed was whether using nonmaternal care affects
the emotional attachment formed between infants
and their mothers. The study found that the use of
day care was not in and of itself associated with the
quality of the attachment relationship. However, if
mothers were low in sensitivity and the infants were
either in poor quality care, in day care for more than
ten hours per week, or experienced multiple settings
before age fifteen months, then the infants were more
likely to be insecurely attached to their mothers.
Thus, the results suggest that the quality of mother-
infant attachment is related to a combination of day
care and home characteristics.Day Care as a Social Phenomenon
The use of day care has increased dramatically as
increasing numbers of mothers have chosen to work
outside of the home. According to the U.S. Census,
only 31 percent of mothers of infants were working in- This percentage climbed to 47 percent in 1984
and to 59 percent in 1998. As mentioned in a review
by Kathleen McCartney and Deborah Phillips, soci-
etal views of day care have also changed over time.
When day care was first formally established in the
United States, a stigma was attached to its use. In the
late 1800s through the early 1900s, day nurseries
were established to make up for the ‘‘poor home envi-
ronments’’ of working immigrants. Societal views
changed during the Great Depression and World War
II, when the need for day care was seen as temporary;
the expectation was that mothers would later return
home to their children, and federal funds for day-care
112 DAY CARE