1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«This paper examines a policy area at the heart of contemporary struggles in Canada around neoliberalism and welfare state restructuring: early childhood education and care (ECEC) for children under the age of six. [...] We examine developments in the Quebec and Canadian governments’ approaches over the past decade, with a view to identifying the opportunities and constraints for gender equity struggles, the valuing of care in social policy, and how resistance to neoliberalism may benefit from greater consideration of an ethics of care.» (p.49)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
Données documentaires diverses

Type de traitement des données :
Réflexion critique

3. Résumé

«Since 1997, when the Parti Québécois (PQ) government set out to fund a universal system of child care, Quebec has been viewed by many child care advocates and feminists as a model. [...] In contrast, other Canadian provinces were criticized for separating ’care’ and ’education,’ and offering levels of funding well below those of most other OECD countries.» (p.49) «Yet key rationales for the policy proposed by the federal Liberals and for the policy implemented in Quebec in 1997 merit critical attention because they reinforce the capitalist logic of commodification and competition, and fail to challenge the unequal sexual division of caring labour. [...] Thus our focus is on their similarities as universal (or dual income) breadwinner models, which have been embraced in the name of ’social investment.’ This model’s inability to resolve the conflicts experienced by many families in relation to Work-Life balance, parenting, and gender equity is, we suggest, important for two reasons. First, its inadequacies are part of the explanation for the difficulty that feminists, child care advocates, and others have had in fending off ’parental choice’ campaigns by both neoconservatives and neoliberals. Second, and relatedly, the universal breadwinner model is only a limited vision of what feminists and their allies seek. Our intention in critiquing these two policies is to compare them to what, in our view, is a more genuinely progressive vision: one advanced by feminist theorists such as Nancy Fraser and Carole Pateman under the rubrics of the universal caregiver or gender equity model.» (pp.50-51)