From Crèches to Childcare: Constructions of Motherhood and Inclusion/Exclusion in the History of Belgian Infant Care

In this article the author highlights some elements of the history of exclusion in Belgian infant care and how it is underpinned by constructions of motherhood. In a Belgian context, infant care means institutional care for children from birth to the age of three, funded by the Family and Health Department, in contrast to and entirely separated from pre-school for children aged three to six years, funded by the Education Department (Organisation for Economic Cooperatin and Development [OECD], 2001). The author does this from a hermeneutical historical point of view. As Escolano (1996) has claimed, this means that by means of the evaluation of the internal coherence of the stories (the organisation of data and discourse) and their external coherence with the social context and with other concordant or discordant stories, the author tries try to understand ideas and representations that may help explain the growing exclusion in Belgian infant care.