The effect of small-scale childcare on children's development and health

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K13373
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Public finance/Public economy
• Research Institution: Keio University
• Principal Investigator: NAKAMURO Makiko 慶應義塾大学, 総合政策学部(藤沢), 准教授 (20598403)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: ITERS-R / 保育環境評価スケール / 小規模保育

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study empirically evaluated the childcare environments both at the small- and medium-scale childcares, and analyzed the relationship between the quality of childcare environments and children's development. We compared the childcare environment in the class of the one year old child at the small- and medium-scale childcares using the widely used indicators assesing the qualiy of childcare environments, what is called ITERS-R (Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS-R). As a result, the empirical analysis showed that the quality of the childcare environments was higher in the small-scale childcare in general than the medium-scale childcare. In addition, it was also shown that the quality of childcare environments and the length of teacher's tenure have a significant positive relationship with children's development and health at the end ofthe first year that children attended to childcare.

Free Research Field

教育経済学