保育の質に対する園長の専門性

—保育に関する全国調査から—

抄録

Enhancing the quality and quantity of day care services has become a major challenge in Japan. The quality of day care services is an issue that needs to be addressed on a policy level, but it is also a problem that can be improved by the management of day care centers. However, it is not clear to what extent the quality of day care is governed by institutional factors, and what aspects are improving due to the management of day care centers.

This paper focuses on day care center directors and examines how their attributes and expertize influence the quality of day care services.

The study found that the educational qualifications of the director and his/her expertize have a significant influence on the quality of the day care center. Conversely, differences in location had practically no influence.

The educational qualifications of the director did not influence caregivers’ turnover rate. However, the director’s experience as a caregiver minimized the staff turnover rate. The director’s expertize in improving the workplace environment also helped to reduce the turnover rate. Conversely, it was confirmed that too many initiatives to improve caregivers’ expertize tended to increase the staff turnover rate. With respect to the staff turnover rate, the type of facilities, or differences in local government policies, were more significant than the directors’ attributes and expertize. Specifically, non-licensed day care centers and those in large cities had a high turnover rate. These results indicate that conducting a minimum quality assurance study by institutional means is effective in preventing the turnover; however, from the perspective of further improving the expertize quality, of the director has a significant effect.