The Care of Infant in Group Settings

영·유아의 단체양육에 관한 일 연구

I. Objectives This study was done to analyze and evaluate the attitudes of the working mothers toward the care of infants in group settings. II. Method and Procedures 1. Standardized questionnaire were sent out to look into the following: 1) the attitude of working mothers, who have infants below 4 years of age, regarding their job, care-taker and group settings. 2) the status of taking care of their infants 2. Subjects Women teachers of Seoul and Kyung Ki primary school districts, who have infants below age 4. The selection of these subjects were done by random sampling. III. Results 1. Attitudes regarding their jobs: The first reason for retaining their jobs are for financial reasons; whereas, their intents of self-actualization and contributions to society comes next. 2. The Status of Caretakers 60.7% of the care-takers are family-related members, and 38.3% are not. The educational level of caretakers are as follows, with 19.6% of the caretakers without any formal education, 44% with primary education, and 18.7% having high school education. The reasons for the dissatisfaction by the caretakers are low education, a frequent change of caretaker, and an attitude without affection. The cost of child caring is high, the main reason being the heavy expense spent on the caretakers. 3. Attitudes of care in group settings: 85.9% of the subjects responded with positive reactions for the necessity of having group-settings. The reasons given for the importance of having a group setting are early experience, social interaction with peer group and educational functioning, in addition to protective care. They desire for a family-style care which can raise infants under high quality of care.