Keeping Current in Child Care Research--Annotated Bibliography: An Update.

In 1987, the National Association for the Education of Young Children published "Keeping Current in Child Care Research: An Annotated Bibliography," by Carollee Howes, which reviewed child care research through 1987. In 1999, the Center for Early Education and Development updated the original review to include studies from 1987 to 1999. This update was created for participants in the second Annual Minnesota Child Care Research conference: Welfare Reform and the Lives of Children. The update is organized in the same format as the original bibliography. The first four sections review research that continues to address questions raised in the 1970s: Will child care attendance be harmful to the child? What benefits do children receive from child care? Can child care serve as an effective intervention program in the short and long term? For example, included are recent data from the Abecedarian project, a longitudinal study begun in 1972 detailing the effectiveness of child care as an intervention for at-risk children. The next five sections of the update highlight studies that address research questions begun in the 1980s: What features distinguish high- from low-quality child care? What are the effects of age of entry, length of day, and total time in child care? What is the relation between family factors and child care? These sections include information from several well-known studies that have greatly influenced how we think about child care, such as the Cost, Quality, and Outcomes Study; the Florida Quality Improvement Study; and the National Child Care Staffing Study. Finally, new sections were created in the update for studies on family child care and on inclusive settings. These two areas have been studied extensively since 1987, with enough research to warrant separate sections for each. (HTH)