Institutions, Myths and Beliefs: An Investigation of the Influence of Path Dependency on the Contemporary Discourses on Childcare in the Czech Republic, Sweden and France

Autor	Prof. Steven Saxonberg, Prof.
Organisation	Katedra sociální politiky a sociální práce, Fakulta sociálních studií, Masarykova Univerzita
Year	2011
Research type	research report
Annotation	Our project examines childcare policies as well as the public and expert discourses around it. It emphasizes the importance of decisions that are made in certain periods, which set different countries on difference trajectories. It also investigates the influence of these discourses on these decisions as well as the influence of these decisions on later discourses by comparing three countries: the Czech Republic, Sweden and France. It uses both an institutionalist analysis of path dependency (focusing on the key decisions about the childcare) and a critical discourse analysis (focusing on the interplay between institutional arrangements and the public discourse). The findings will help to understand the socially constructed character of discourses on what constitute the "proper" form of childcare, as well as the influence of the historical-institutional development on the current forms of childcare policies and the manner in which discourses and institutional practices are interlinked.
Keywords	childcare; institutions; path-dependency; discourses; motherhood
Research type	comparative research
Start date	1. 1. 2009
End date	31. 12. 2011
Obor	AO Sociology, demography
Email	kotolova@fss.muni.cz
Availability	available by the researcher
Research location	Katedra sociální politiky a sociální práce, Fakulta sociálních studií, Masarykova Univerzita, Joštova 218/10, Brno 60200
Organisation	Katedra sociální politiky a sociální práce, Fakulta sociálních studií, Masarykova Univerzita
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