A Profile of Child Care Settings: Center-Based Programs, 1990
Investigators: Ellen Eliason Kisker & Valarie Piper

The Profile of Child Care Settings Study was conducted for the U.S. Department of Education with the primary objective of determining the levels and characteristics of early education and care that are available in the United States. Telephone interviews were conducted with nationally representative samples of regulated home-based family day care providers and center-based early education and care programs between October, 1989 and February, 1990 using computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) methods. The final samples included 583 regulated home-based family day care providers (archived as AFDA Data Set No. 15-16), and 2,089 center-based programs. This data set focuses on the survey of 2,089 center-based programs. The survey of center-based early education and care programs collected extensive data on a number of topics including general characteristics, admission policies and vacanies, types of children served, subsidies, staff, curriculum and activities, meals, health and safety, and operating experiences. There are There are 887 variables in all, seven of which provide demographic information about the counties where the center-based programs are located. The 2,089 cases on file represent an 88.7% completion rate among sampled programs eligible for the study.