Caring for Children: Social Movements and Public Policy in Canada
About this ebook
Couched in the language of choice, government policies on the care of Canadian children over the past decade have favoured professional, nuclear families while doing little to assist children with the greatest needs, including those from low-income, immigrant, and Aboriginal families.
Analyzing the connections between services and programs, the contributors reveal how childcare, parental leave, informal care, live-in caregiver programs, and child tax benefits affect the well-being of Canadian children and their families. They draw on comparative examples from across Canada, documenting policy shifts and associated social movement responses.
Caring for Children affirms the necessity of questioning political attitudes and arrangements, and asks what social movements can do to promote positive change in approaches to the care of children.
About the author
Rachel Langford is an associate professor in the School of Early Childhood Studies at Ryerson University, where she served as director from 2006 to 2016. She has published widely on early childhood pedagogy and early learning curriculum frameworks. Her research focuses on childcare advocacy and policy development, early childhood education and care workforce professionalization, and conceptualizations of care and caregiving.
Susan Prentice is a professor of sociology at the University of Manitoba, where she is also the chair of graduate studies. She is a co-author of About Canada: Childcare (2009) and the editor of Changing Child Care: Five Decades of Child Care Advocacy and Policy in Canada (2001), among other publications. Her primary research specialization is contemporary and historical childcare policy and advocacy.
Patrizia Albanese is a professor of sociology at Ryerson and past president of the Canadian Sociology Association. Among her publications are Child Poverty in Canada (2010), Children in Canada Today (2009), and Mothers of the Nation: Women, Families, and Nationalism in Twentieth Century Europe (2006). Her research interests include childcare policies in Quebec and Ontario, immigrant children, the well-being of youth in Canadian Forces families, the depiction of childcare in Canadian newspapers, and the intergenerational transmission of problem gambling.
