Proceedings of The 5th World Conference on Research in Education
Year: 2022
DOI:
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Assessing community attitudes towards home based male caregivers for daycare children
Adedokun, TA and Adedokun, ET
ABSTRACT:
This study presents an assessment of the attitudes of community toward home based male caregivers for daycare children. Care giving for children has been a subject of concern in the present-day world. The concern bothers parents especially those whose works and careers are tasking, having little or no time to fulfil their caring role to their children and as such would need to keep their children under the care of someone every time that duty calls. Historically, caregiving of children is typically carried out by females and therefore concerted efforts to involve males in caregiving which will serve as an important breakthrough to breaking the barriers of gender inequality. In the present-day Nigeria, there has been increasing demand for caregiving service for children. This study is concerned about this growing increase of female caregiver in comparison to male counterparts when the service of caregiving for children is required. This study was situated in the context of Ogbomoso South and North Local Government of Nigeria where 50 parents were assessed on their attitudes towards home based male caregivers for their daycare children. The study adopts a qualitative approach where samples were drawn using the accidental sampling method using questionnaire as the survey instrument. The findings revealed that despite many female caregivers do not possess requisite training in caregiving, many parents prefer them to the trained male counterpart in an attempt to avoid going for male caregivers. The study also showed that male figures are essential in caregiving where children lack such at home. It is apparent that parents lack the framework that would provide them the ability to choose caregivers yet they choose for their children. Such framework would be instrumental in bridging the gap of gender inequality in caregiving for daycare children.
keywords: male caregivers, community, attitudes, children, parents, daycare .