[Tagging] Childcare Tag

[Peter Wendorff]

Am 10.07.2013 15:07, schrieb alyssa wright:
> Again, thanks for all the discussion. I'm following most of it. ;) I think...
> 
> Could I attempt to articulate what I consider the major confusion in the existing kindergarten tag? Perhaps this is already known, but perhaps an explanation could inspire a graceful resolution.
> 
> In the US, (and according to the Oxford dictionary Australia and Britain), kindergarten is legally defined for 5 and 6 year olds. There are cases where parents have attempted to enroll a child of below 5 into kindergarten and have been legally refused. Instead there are a number of facilities that accommodate children below the age of 5.
> 
> For a working family, a child below 5 could be under the care of a preschool (an informal group not typically associated with a school though sometimes affiliated with a religious organization), childcare (sometimes affiliated with a person's place of employment), a nursery (typically for very young children), among others. 
> 
> The use of the tag kindergarten as the umbrella description for such places of care doesn't make sense in my own cultural context. It would be like looking for a temple of Jewish denomination under the tag bar, because there is wine during services. Why would I look for nursery under kindergarten when the two -- culturally and legally -- are unrelated?
> 
> It is my understanding that kindergarten means something very different in other places of the world. 
> How does OSM account for such cultural differences? Perhaps the childcare proposal should not try to replace kindergarten, 
> but instead try to disassociate childcare from the kindergarten umbrella? 
In Germany a Kindergarten (that's where the English language has the
word taken from, I think ;) ) is something for the age of around 3 and 6
(at the age of 6 children start with school), since a few years
sometimes even starting at an age of 1 (!).

So a kindergarten in Germany IMHO most often means "a place for children
who are not yet going to school (because of age)."

So here it in fact is that umbrella term you seem to dislike.

regards
Peter