Originally published in 1981 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the birth of the Pre-school Playgroups Association, Parents and Playgroups brings together three wide-ranging reports which examine the role of the playgroup movement, its underlying philosophy and the contribution made by both playgroups and Mother and Toddler groups to the lives of thousands of mothers and children throughout Britain at the time.
Formed following a letter to the Guardian in 1961, the PPA together with its sister organization the Scottish PPA had a membership of approaching 16,000 playgroups, serving nearly half a million children. Yet there had been very little research into the workings of the movement until 1975, when Barclays Bank funded a major research project which resulted in the three reports Parental Involvement in Playgroups, Mother and Toddler Groups and Patterns of Oversight published in this volume.
The many questions explored and debated i
