Browsing by Author "Hyrsky, Eeva-Liisa"

Objectives. The material for this case study was collected during the academic year 2010–2011 in a municipal round-the-clock daycare centre in Southern Finland. The study aims to describe what kind of environment round-the-clock daycare provides for young children. I have especially observed the relationships during a child's daycare shift, which means counting the adults and children who were in the same place at the same time and the amount of interaction relationships between any two people. The documents directing early childhood education have little to say about round-the-clock daycare. The municipalities are obligated to provide daycare in such forms and to such extent as needed. Round-the-clock daycare has not been researched much and the principles of providing it vary. When it comes to the daycare of small children, good interaction between the adult and the child, small daycare group, familiar adults and peers, and sufficiently short daycare shifts are considered important. Children's involvement in play or task activities is considered a criterion of quality. In round-the-clock daycare situations change constantly; children and adults come and go all day long. Work schedules determine who is around at any given time, and economical reasons demand that different groups work together. Methods. I used several methods to describe the round-the-clock daycare of young children. I inserted the data concerning the care hours of the six youngest children of the group from autumn 2010 into the SPSS system. The length and time of each daycare shift, day of the week, and the amount of other children and adults present during each daycare shift were observed. I counted all the interaction relationships that occurred during each daycare shift. It was also noted whether the people present were from the children's own group or from another daycare group. In spring 2011 I recorded children's actions on video and observed the daily routines of the group and the daycare centre. The videotapes were used to observe and evaluate the children's involvement level on the 5-point LIS-YC scale. Results and conclusions. The six children had a total of 372 daycare shifts. With only the peers of their own group there were 123 shifts. The shifts were from two to 26 hours long. The interaction relationships during one shift amounted to 10 – 1 128. The median was 288. The mode was 276, which equals a common daycare group of three adults and 21 children over the age of three. Based on 76 evaluations, the children's involvement level was satisfactory, 3.11 on average. In a round-the-clock daycare group young children have to face a lot of people and endure constant interruptions in their activities.