From Rights Claims to Quality Frames in US Child Care Advocacy.

How and why do advocates choose frames, and what are the effects of these choices? This study draws on two decades of data about the Center for the Child Care Workforce (CCW), an advocacy organization founded by feminist early childhood educators in 1977 to raise child care wages. It traces how contextual factors shape framing choices, and how framing choices shape advocacy goals and claims. Archival research and interview data reveal that discursive barriers led CCW to lobby for ensuring "quality" child care, a strategic choice that inadvertently prioritized professional educators' interests over those of other caregivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]