Outline and Evaluate Research Into the Effects of Day Care on Social Development

Belsky and Rovine (1988) conducted a carry in order to assess fastener using the strange situation technique. They observed infants who had been receiving 20 hours or more(prenominal) of daylight bring off per calendar week before the age of 1. Their findings suggested that, in comparing to children at home, these children were more often insecurely attached. With insecure attachments being associated with poorer neighborly relationships this whitethorn be considered a negative effect of day care.The NICHD started a longitudinal battleground in 1991 to regard many aspects of child development. alike the NICHD study plunge that children who were in day care for more than 30 hours a week were 3 sentences more likely to submit behaviour problems when they went to school. By comparing the two studies we can see that the add together of time spent in day care plays an important employment in whether or not children showed negative effects.However Violata and Russells meta-a nalysis showed that when time spent in day care exceeds 20 hours a week negative effects become apparent however the NICHD study found this time to be 30 hours therefore the results are contradictory and inconsistent. The EPPE study was a large scale, longitudinal study of the progress and development of 3,000 children in various types of pre-school education across the UK. The results of the EPPE study found that high levels of day care, particularly nursery care in the first 2 years, whitethorn elevate the risk of developing anti-social behaviour.To some degree the EPPE study supports the findings of Belsky and Rovines study as both found that the age of the child when located in day care contributed to whether or not it was perceived to puddle negative implications. However the two studies can only be looked at comparatively to a certain extent as Belsky and Rovines study assessed infants under the age of 1 whereas the EPPE study assessed children up to the age of 7.Clarke-Stew ard et al studied 150 children and found that those who were in day care were systematically more advanced in their social development than children who stayed home with mothers, enable them to better deal with peer relationships. Likewise, the EPPE study found increased freedom and sociability in the children who attended day care. Field (1991) found that the bar of time spent in regular day care was positively correlated to the number of friends children has once they went to school.However, although these findings suggest that full-time day care had positive effects on the child, the results clash with studies conducted by Belsky and Rovine. This may be due to individual differences of the children assessed in both studies, for example shy children may have appeared insecure when assessed using the strange situation technique by Belsky and Rovine. Moreover the positive coefficient of correlation shown in Fields study cannot accurately be used as grounds to state that full-ti me day care causes children to be more popular as correlation is not causation.