Parents’ and teachers’ perceptions of quality in Portuguese childcare classrooms

Abstract

The main goal of this study was to examine parents' and teachers' perceptions of quality in early childhood education for toddlers in Portugal. A total of 110 parents and 110 teachers participated in the study, rating the importance of specific quality criteria and assessing childcare classrooms, based on the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale Parent Questionnaire (ITERS-RPQ) and on the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale Teacher Questionnaire (ITERS-RTQ), respectively. The same quality items were used by external observers to evaluate the same classrooms with the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS-R; . Results suggest that parents and teachers give high importance scores to the quality criteria included in the ITERS-R, substantiating the use of this instrument in Portugal. Although correlations were found between observers' and parents' ratings of quality, and between observers' and teachers' ratings of quality, results suggest that teachers and parents consider education and care in toddler classrooms to be substantially more adequate than the researchers observed. KeywordsChildcare quality. Early childhood education . Parents' perceptions. Teachers' perceptions.Portugal Research has been showing the importance of quality of early childhood education (ECE) for children's short-term and long-term outcomes (e.g., Vandell et al. 2010). In Portugal, in the last decades, a public investment has been made in order to increase the coverage rate of childcare services for infants and toddlers, dependent on the Ministry of Solidarity, Employment and Social Security, and the coverage rate of preschools (children between 3 and 6 years old), dependent on the Ministry of Education (Abreu-Lima et al. 2013;Pinto et al. 2013). However, research projects on ECE services for infants and toddlers, and initiatives to improve their quality, are still necessary (Barros and Aguiar 2010). Furthermore, quality of ECE has been considered a relative concept (e.g., Dahlberg et al. 1999), differing from country to country and depending on individual and/or group priorities, expectations, values, beliefs, social perceptions, and culture (e.g., Dahlberg et al. 1999; European Commission Childcare Network 1990). In this context, Bairrão (1998) highlighted that quality is related to objective criteria (associated with physical, material, and social well-being) but also related to subjective aspects, such as representations people have about quality. Therefore, parents' and teachers' perceptions should be considered in research and policies, as they often differ from official priorities and objectives. Fifteen years ago, Katz (1998) argued that the concept of quality should be considered from several perspectives: (a) top-down perspective on quality, (b) bottom-up perspective, (c) outside-inside perspective, (d) inside perspective, and (e) outside perspective. The top-down approach is more prevalent in research, consisting in identifying features of the program related to licensing guidelines and including aspects s...

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