The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (September 2010)

Child care or day care is care of a child during the day by a person other than the child's legal guardians, typically performed by someone outside the child's immediate family. Day care is typically an ongoing service during specific periods, such as the parents' time at work.

The service is known as child care in the United Kingdom and Australia and child care or day care in North America (although child care also has a broader meaning).

Child care is provided in nurseries or crèches or by a nanny or family child care provider caring for children in their own homes. It can also take on a more formal structure, with education, child development, discipline and even preschool education falling into the fold of services.

Some childminders care for children from several families at the same time, either in their own home (commonly known as "family day care" in Australia) or in a specialized child care facility. Some employers provide nursery provision for their employees at or near the place of employment.

Child care in the child's own home is traditionally provided by a nanny or au pair, or by extended family members including grandparents, aunts and uncles.

History[link]

A worker drops off her child at day care.

Day care appeared in France about 1840, and the Société des Crèches was recognized by the French government in 1869. Originating in Europe in the late 18th and early 19th century, day cares were established in the United States by private charities in the 1850s, the first being the New York Day Nursery in 1854.

Business[link]

The day care industry is a continuum from personal parental care to large, regulated institutions.

The vast majority of childcare is still performed by the parents, in house nanny or through informal arrangements with relatives, neighbors or friends. For example, in Canada, among two parent families with at least one working parent, 62% of parents handle the childcare themselves, 32% have other in-home care (nannies, relatives, neighbours or friends) and only 6.5% use a formal day care center.^[1]

However for-profit day care corporations often exist where the market is sufficiently large or there are government subsidies. For instance, in North America, KinderCare Learning Centers, one of the largest of such companies, has approximately 1,600 centers located in 39 states and the District of Columbia.^[2] Bright Horizons Family Solutions another of the largest has over 600 daycare centers.^[3] Similarly the Australian government's childcare subsidy has allowed the creation of a large private-sector industry in that country.^[4] ABC Learning Centres is a publicly traded company running about 1,000 daycare centres in Australia and New Zealand and another 500 in the USA.

Another factor favoring large corporate day cares is the existence of childcare facilities in the workplace. Large corporations will not handle this employee benefit directly themselves and will seek out large corporate providers to manage their corporate daycares. Most smaller, for-profit day cares operate out of a single location.

In general, the geographic limitations and the diversity in type of daycare providers make child daycare a highly fragmented industry. The largest providers own only a very small share of the market. This leads to frustration for parents who are attempting to find quality child daycare, with 87% of them describing the traditional search for child daycare as "difficult and frustrating".^{[citation needed]}

Non-profit daycare[link]

"Considerable research has accumulated showing that not-for-profits are much more likely to produce the high quality environments in which children thrive."^[5]

• Non-profit day cares have some structural advantages over for-profit operations:
  • They may receive preferential treatment in rents especially if they are affiliated with a church that is otherwise unoccupied during the week, or with a school that has surplus space.
  • Location within a school may further bring the advantage of coordinated programs with the school and the advantage of a single location for parents who have older school-age children as well.
  • Parents are typically the legal owners of the non-profit day care and will routinely provide consulting services (for example accounting, legal, human resource) for free. (There are some non-profits not operated by parents, but by a board of directors made up of community representatives who just want what is good for children.)
  • Non-profits have an advantage in fund-raising as most people will not donate to a for-profit organization.
  • Non-profits, however, are typically limited in size to a single location as the parent-owners have no motivation to manage other locations where their children are not present.
  • They may suffer from succession issues as children grow and parents leave the management of the day care to others.

Local governments, often municipalities, may operate non-profit day care centers. In non-profits, the title of the most senior supervisor is typically "executive director", following the convention of most non-profit organizations.

For-profit daycare[link]

Family day cares can be operated by a single individual out of their home. There may be occasions when more than one individual cares for children in a family childcare home. This can be a stay-at-home parent who seeks supplemental income while caring for their own child. There are also many family childcare providers who have chosen this field as a profession. Local legislation will regulate the number and ages of children allowed per family child care home. Some localities have very stringent quality standards that require licensure for family child care homes while others require little or no regulations for childcare in individual's homes. Some home day cares operate illegally with respect to tax legislation where the care provider does not report fees as income and the parent does not receive a receipt to qualify for childcare tax deductions. However, it is beneficiary for Day Care providers to be licensed so that they can have access to financial benefits from their state government, or the federal government. Examples of such benefits are: Free Training and Professional Development Courses, Child And Adult Care Food Program (which allows eligible Daycare providers to claim a portion of costs relating to nutritious meals served to children),and more;.^[6]

Family childcare may be less expensive than center based care because of the lower overhead in family childcare. Many family childcare providers may be certified with the same credentials as center based staff.

Franchising of home day care facilities attempts to bring economies of scale to home day care. A central operator handles marketing, administration and perhaps some central purchasing while the actual care occurs in individual homes. The central operator may provide training to the individual care providers. Some providers even offer enrichment programs to take the daycare experience to a more educational level.

Staff[link]

For all providers, the largest expense is labour. In a 1999 Canadian survey of formal child care centres, labour accounted for 63% of costs and the industry had an average profit of 5.3%.^[7] Given the labour-intensive nature of the industry, it is not surprising that the same survey showed little economies of scale between larger and smaller operators.

Local legislation may regulate the operation of day care centres, affecting staffing requirements. Laws may mandate staffing ratios (for example 1:3 for under 18 months, 1:5 for 18–30 months, 1:8 for over 30 months, and even higher ratios for older children). Legislation may mandate qualifications of supervisors. Staff typically do not require any qualifications but staff under the age of eighteen may require supervision. Typically, once the child reaches the age of twelve, they are no longer covered by day care legislation and programs for older children may not be regulated.

In Canada, the workforce is predominantly female (95%) and low paid, averaging only 60% of average workforce wage.^[7] Many employees are at local minimum wage and are typically paid by the hour rather than salaried. In the United States, "child care worker" is the fifth most female-dominated occupation (95.5% female in 1999).^[8] In the US, staffing requirements vary from state to state.

Standards and requirements[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Some jurisdictions require licensing or certification. Parents may also turn to independent rating services, or rely on recommendations and referrals. Some places develop voluntary quality networks, for example in Australia most childcare services are part of a national Quality Assurance system.

Most countries have laws relating to childcare, which seek to prevent and punish child abuse. Such laws may add cost and complexity to childcare provision and may provide tools to help ensure quality childcare.

Additionally, legislation typically defines what constitutes daycare (e.g., so as to not regulate individual babysitters). It may specify details of the physical facilities (washroom, eating, sleeping, lighting levels, etc.). The minimum window space may be such that it precludes day cares from being in a basement. It may specify the minimum floor space per child (for example 2.8 square metres) and the maximum number of children per room (for example 24). It may mandate minimum outdoor time (for example 2 hours for programs 6 hours or longer). Legislation may mandate qualifications of supervisors. Staff typically do not require any qualifications but staff under the age of eighteen may require supervision. Some legislation also establishes rating systems, the number and condition of various toys, and documents to be maintained.^[9] Typically^{[citation needed]}, once the child reaches the age of twelve, they are no longer covered by day care legislation and programs for older children may not be regulated.

Legislation may mandate staffing ratios (for example 1:3 for under 16–18 months, 1:5 for 18–30 months, 1:8 for over 30 months, and even higher ratios for older children). The carer to child ratio is one factor indicating of quality of care. Ratios vary greatly by location and by day care center. Potential consequences of a carer:child ratio which is too high could be serious^{[citation needed]}. However, many states allow a higher numbers of toddlers to care givers and some centers do not comply consistently. For example, within the US: Pennsylvania, ages 1–3, 1 teacher to 5 children;^[10] Missouri: age 2, 1 teacher to 8 children;^[11] North Carolina: 1 teacher to 10 children.^[9]

Many organizations (in the developed world) campaign for free or subsidized childcare for all. Others campaign for tax breaks or allowances to allow parents a non-finance driven choice. Many of the free or subsidized childcare programs in the United States are also Child Development programs, or after school programs which hire certified teachers to teach the children while they are in their care. There are often local industry associations that lobby governments on childcare policy, promote the industry to the public^[12] or help parents choose the right daycare provider.^[13]

For instance, in the United States, childcare in regulated commercial or family childcare home setting is administered or led by teachers who may have a Child Development Associate or higher credentials. These higher credentials include Associate, Bachelor, and even Master degrees in the field of Early Childhood Education (ECE). Although Childcare professionals may obtain a degree, many states require that they attend workshops yearly to better their knowledge and skill levels in the childcare field.

Worldwide details[link]

Australia[link]

Australia has a large child care industry,^[14] however in many locations (especially in inner-city suburbs of large cities and in rural areas) the availability is limited and, at the worst, the waiting periods can be up to several years.^[15] The Australian government's Child Care benefit^[16] scheme provides very limited assistance with the comparatively high child care costs - the median weekly cost of centre-based long day care in 2008 was approximately AU$265^[17] which puts it out of the reach of lower income earners.^[18]

Regulation is under the auspices of the NCAC.^[19]

Ratios are 1:4 for infants, and 1:10 for pre-schoolers. All childcare workers must have the minimum "Certificate III in Children's Services" in order to work in a centre.

Canada[link]

Canada offers both private and subsidized daycare centres. According to provinces and cities some shortages of subsidized openings can lengthen the time needed to find a suitable childcare provider. To counter this governments or private enterprise sometimes enable parents to look for available spaces online.^[20][21]

United States[link]

State legislation may regulate the number and ages of children allowed before the home is considered an official day care program and subject to more stringent safety regulations. Often the nationally recognized Child Development Associate credential is the minimum standard for the individual leading this home care program.^{[citation needed]} Each state has different regulations for teacher requirements. In some states,for teaching in a Day Care center Teachers must have an Associates Degree in child Development. States with quality standards built into their licensing programs may have higher requirements for support staff such as teacher assistants. And for Head Start Teachers by 2012 all Lead teachers must have a Bachelors Degree in Early Childhood Education. States vary in the standards set for daycare providers, such as teacher to child ratios.

Family childcare can also be nationally accredited by the National Association of Family Childcare if the provider chooses to go through the process. National accreditation is only awarded to those programs who demonstrate the quality standards set forth by the NAFCC.

United Kingdom[link]

The UK has a wide range of childcare offered, including childminders, day nurseries, playgroups and can also include pre-school education at school. It is regulated by OFSTED (CSSIW in Wales), which operates the application and inspection process for the sector.

Childcare is primarily funded by parents, however the Single Funding Formula (pre-school funding) can be used at some day nurseries, playgroups and schools for a maximum of 5 sessions per week, the term after a child reaches 3 years. The government introduced a childcare allowance (vouchers) by which employers could make payments for childcare, prior to tax, on employees wages.

Median rates (2011) are approximately £4.50 per hour for childminders, £7:5-£10 net per hour for nannies, £60-100 per week for au pairs and £35-£50 per day for day nurseries.

Mexico[link]

In Mexico, the President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa has created a Social Program named "Programa de Estancias Infantiles" that included more than 8,000 Day Care Spaces for children between 1 and 3.11 years old. This program subsides Mothers that Work and Study and also Singles Fathers in a vulnerable situation. It has a great success having more than 125,000 children over the country. This is regulated by the Social Development Minister (Secretaría de Desarrollo Social).[2]

Germany[link]

In Germany there is a variety of possibilities for young children. A famous example is the KITA (de:Kindertagesstätte).

In 2009, under the leadership of family minister Ursula von der Leyen in the CDU government of Angela Merkel, a plan to triple to 750,000 the number of day-care places is proceeding. However, there are a number of conflicts between the goal of easing the challenges of raising a family and pursuing a career, on one hand, and the goal of easing child-generated noise pollution. A report highlights an appeal pending before the Constitutional Court against the Sternipark center, brought by its Hamburg neighbors in an already rather noisy location on a thoroughfare between Othmarschen and Blankenese. The report also reviews the issue as it has arisen around the Federal Republic, with its aging, non-self-regenerating population.^[22][23]

Norway[link]

Most children in Norway start day care between 10 months and 3 years. Funded parental leave for working parents is either 44 weeks full pay, or 54 weeks with 80% pay (both up to a certain level only). The government guarantees kindergarten for all children that are 1 year old at 1. August ^[24]. Coverage is still not 100%, but most regions are getting close (2011). There's a maximum price to enable all families to afford it.

Spain[link]

Spain provides paid maternity leave of 16 weeks with 30-50% of mothers returning to work (most full-time) after this^{[citation needed]}, thus babies of 4 months age tend to be placed in day care centers. Adult-infant ratios are about 1:7-8 first year and 1:16-18 second year.^{[citation needed]} Public pre-school education is provided for most children aged 3–5 years in "Infantil" schools also providing primary school education.^{[citation needed]}

Child development[link]

Independent studies suggest that good day care for non-infants is not harmful.^[25] Some advocate that day care is inherently inferior to parental care.^[26] In some cases, good daycare can provide different experiences than parental care does, especially when children reach two and are ready to interact with other children. Bad day care puts the child at physical, emotional and attachment risk. Higher quality care was associated with better outcomes. Children in higher quality child care had somewhat better language and cognitive development during the first 4½ years of life than those in lower quality care. They were also somewhat more cooperative than those who experienced lower quality care during the first 3 years of life.

The National Institute of Health released a study in March, 2007 after following a group of children through early childhood to the 6th grade.^[27] The study found that the children who received a higher quality of child care scored higher on 5th grade vocabulary tests than the children who had attended child care of a lower quality. The study also reported that teachers found children from child care to be "disobedient", fight more frequently, and more argumentative. The study reported the increases in both aggression and vocabulary were small. "The researchers emphasized that the children’s behavior was within the normal range and were not considered clinically disordered."

As a matter of social policy, consistent, good daycare, may ensure adequate early childhood education for children of less skilled parents. From a parental perspective, good daycare can complement good parenting.

A 2001 report showed that children in high-quality care scored higher on tests of language, memory and other skills than did children of stay-at-home mothers or children in lower-quality day care.^[28]

A study appearing in Child Development in July/August 2003 found that the amount of time spent in day care before four-and-a-half tended to correspond with the child's tendency to be less likely to get along with others, to be disobedient, and to be aggressive, although still within the normal range.^[29][30]

See also[link]

• Adult daycare center
• After-school activity
• Day care sexual abuse hysteria
• Ladies' Deborah and Child's Protectory

References[link]

External links[link]

• Quality Child Care From University of Florida/IFAS Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences, Factors in choosing quality child care.
• Issue Guide on Child Care Examines policy alternatives and public opinion on child care in the US, from Public Agenda Online
• Peter S Cook Views on the effects of daycare/childcare from retired Sydney psychiatrist Peter S Cook
• National Child Care Information and Technical Assistance Center (NCCIC)

Resources for childcare in the United States[link]

• Childcare.gov Resources about daycare and early development
• US Department of Health and Human Services Head Start Program information
• IRS Child and Dependent Care Credit information
• Childcare.gov Links for childcare licensing and small business operations

Water, Rabbit, and Deer: three of the 20 day symbols in the Aztec calendar, from the Aztec calendar stone.

A day is a unit of time, commonly defined as an interval equal to 24 hours.^[1] It also can mean that portion of the full day during which a location is illuminated by the light of the sun, also known as daytime. The period of time measured from local noon to the following local noon is called a solar day.^[2][3]

Several definitions of this universal human concept are used according to context, need and convenience. In 1967, the second was redefined in terms of the wavelength of light, and it became the SI base unit of time. The unit of measurement for time called "day", redefined in 1967 as 86,400 SI seconds and symbolized d, is not an SI unit, but it is accepted for use with SI.^[1] A civil day is usually also 86,400 seconds, plus or minus a possible leap second in Coordinated Universal Time UTC, and, in some locations, occasionally plus or minus an hour when changing from or to daylight saving time. The word day may also refer to a day of the week or to a calendar date, as in answer to the question "On which day?" Day also refers to the part of the day that is not night — also known as 'daytime'. The life patterns of humans and many other species are related to Earth's solar day and the cycle of day and night (see circadian rhythms).

The average length of a solar day on Earth is about 86,400 seconds (24 hours) and there are about 365.2422 solar days in one mean tropical year. Because celestial orbits are not perfectly circular, and thus objects travel at different speeds at various positions in their orbit, a solar day is not the same length of time throughout the orbital year. A day, understood as the span of time it takes for the Earth to make one entire rotation^[4] with respect to the celestial background or a distant star (assumed to be fixed), is called stellar day. This period of rotation is about 4 minutes less than 24 hours and there are about 366.2422 in one mean tropical year (one more stellar day than the number of solar days). Mainly due to tidal effects, the Earth's rotational period is not constant, resulting in further minor variations for both solar days and stellar 'days'. Other planets and moons also have stellar and solar days.

Introduction[link]

Dagr, the Norse god of the day, rides his horse in this 19th-century painting by Peter Nicolai Arbo.

Besides the day of 24 hours (86,400 seconds), the word day is used for several different spans of time based on the rotation of the Earth around its axis. An important one is the solar day, defined as the time it takes for the sun to return to the zenith (its highest point in the sky). Because the Earth orbits the Sun elliptically as the Earth spins on an inclined axis, this period can be up to 7.9 seconds more than (or less than) 24 hours. On average over the year this day is equivalent to 24 hours (86,400 seconds).

A day, in the sense of daytime that is distinguished from night-time, is commonly defined as the period during which sunlight directly reaches the ground, assuming that there are no local obstacles. The length of daytime averages slightly more than half of the 24-hour day. Two effects make daytime on average longer than nights. The Sun is not a point, but has an apparent size of about 32 minutes of arc. Additionally, the atmosphere refracts sunlight in such a way that some of it reaches the ground even when the Sun is below the horizon by about 34 minutes of arc. So the first light reaches the ground when the centre of the Sun is still below the horizon by about 50 minutes of arc. The difference in time depends on the angle at which the Sun rises and sets (itself a function of latitude), but can amount to around seven minutes.

Ancient custom has a new day start at either the rising or setting of the Sun on the local horizon (Italian reckoning, for example) The exact moment of, and the interval between, two sunrises or two sunsets depends on the geographical position (longitude as well as latitude), and the time of year. This is the time as indicated by ancient hemispherical sundials.

A more constant day can be defined by the Sun passing through the local meridian, which happens at local noon (upper culmination) or midnight (lower culmination). The exact moment is dependent on the geographical longitude, and to a lesser extent on the time of the year. The length of such a day is nearly constant (24 hours ± 30 seconds). This is the time as indicated by modern sundials.

A further improvement defines a fictitious mean Sun that moves with constant speed along the celestial equator; the speed is the same as the average speed of the real Sun, but this removes the variation over a year as the Earth moves along its orbit around the Sun (due to both its velocity and its axial tilt).

The Earth's day has increased in length over time. This phenomenon is due to tides raised by the Moon which slow Earth's rotation. Because of the way the second is defined, the mean length of a day is now about 86,400.002 seconds, and is increasing by about 1.7 milliseconds per day every century ( an average over the last 2,700 years. See tidal acceleration for details. The length of one day has been estimated as 21.9 hours 620 million years ago from rhythmites (alternating layers in sandstone). The length of day for the Earth or Proto-Earth before the event which created our moon by an impact is yet unknown.

Etymology[link]

The term comes from the Old English dæg, with its cognates such as Tag in German, and dag in Norwegian, Danish, Swedish and Dutch. "Day" is the 98th most common word in English according to AskOxford.com.^{[citation needed]}

International System of Units (SI)[link]

A day, symbol d, is defined as 86,400 seconds. The second is the unit of time in SI units.

A day on the UTC time scale can include a negative or positive leap second, and can therefore have a length of 86,399 or 86,401 seconds.

The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) currently defines a second as

… the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom.^[5]

This makes the SI-based day last exactly 794,243,384,928,000 of those periods.

Decimal and metric time[link]

In the 19th century it had also been suggested to make a decimal fraction (¹⁄_10,000 or ¹⁄_100,000) of an astronomic day the base unit of time. This was an afterglow of decimal time and calendar, which had been given up already for its difficulty to comply with familiar units. The still most successful candidate is the centiday = 14.4 minutes, as a shorter quarter of an hour and also close to the SI target kilosecond and old Chinese ke.

Astronomy[link]

A day of exactly 86,400 SI seconds is the astronomical unit of time (the second is not preferred in astronomy).^[6]

For a given planet, there are three types of day defined in astronomy:

• stellar day - an entire rotation of a planet with respect to the distant stars
• sidereal day - a single rotation of a planet with respect to the vernal equinox
• mean solar day - average time of a single rotation of a planet with respect to the sun as the central star

For Earth, the stellar day and the sidereal day are nearly of the same length and about 3 minutes 56 seconds shorter than the solar day. Relative to the fixed stars, the Earth spins just over 366 times upon its axis during one complete orbit. The Earth's orbit around the Sun reduces (by one) the number of transits the Sun makes across the Earth's sky in a sidereal year.

Colloquial[link]

The word refers to various relatedly defined ideas, including the following:

• 24 hours (exactly)
• the period of light when the Sun is above the local horizon (that is, the time period from sunrise to sunset);
• the full day covering a dark and a light period, beginning from the beginning of the dark period or from a point near the middle of the dark period;
• a full dark and light period, sometimes called a nychthemeron in English, from the Greek for night-day;
• the time period from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM or 9:00 PM or some other fixed clock period overlapping or set off from other time periods such as "morning", "evening", or "night".

Civil day[link]

For civil purposes a common clock time has been defined for an entire region based on the mean local solar time at some central meridian. Such time zones began to be adopted about the middle of the 19th century when railroads with regular schedules came into use, with most major countries having adopted them by 1929. For the whole world, 40 such time zones are now in use. The main one is "world time" or Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

The present common convention has the civil day starting at midnight, which is near the time of the lower culmination of the mean Sun on the central meridian of the time zone. A day is commonly divided into 24 hours of 60 minutes of 60 seconds each.

Leap seconds[link]

To keep the civil day aligned with the apparent movement of the Sun, positive or negative leap seconds may be inserted.

A civil clock day is typically 86,400 SI seconds long, but will be 86,401 s or 86,399 s long in the event of a leap second.

Leap seconds are announced in advance by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service which measures the Earth's rotation and determines whether a leap second is necessary. Leap seconds occur only at the end of a UTC month, and have only ever been inserted at the end of June 30 or December 31.

Boundaries of the day[link]

Sun and Moon, Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

For most diurnal animals, the day naturally begins at dawn and ends at sunset. Humans, with our cultural norms and scientific knowledge, have supplanted Nature with several different conceptions of the day's boundaries. The Jewish day begins at either sunset or at nightfall (when three second-magnitude stars appear). Medieval Europe followed this tradition, known as Florentine reckoning: in this system, a reference like "two hours into the day" meant two hours after sunset and thus times during the evening need to be shifted back one calendar day in modern reckoning. Days such as Christmas Eve, Halloween, and the Eve of Saint Agnes are the remnants of the older pattern when holidays began the evening before. Present common convention is for the civil day to begin at midnight, that is 00:00 (inclusive), and last a full 24 hours until 24:00 (exclusive).

In ancient Egypt, the day was reckoned from sunrise to sunrise. Muslims fast from daybreak to sunset each day of the month of Ramadan. The "Damascus Document", copies of which were also found among the Dead Sea scrolls, states regarding Sabbath observance that "No one is to do any work on Friday from the moment that the sun's disk stands distant from the horizon by the length of its own diameter," presumably indicating that the monastic community responsible for producing this work counted the day as ending shortly before the sun had begun to set.

In the United States, nights are named after the previous day, e.g. "Friday night" usually means the entire night between Friday and Saturday. This is the opposite of the Jewish pattern. This difference from the civil day often leads to confusion. Events starting at midnight are often announced as occurring the day before. TV-guides tend to list nightly programs at the previous day, although programming a VCR requires the strict logic of starting the new day at 00:00 (to further confuse the issue, VCRs set to the 12-hour clock notation will label this "12:00 AM"). Expressions like "today", "yesterday" and "tomorrow" become ambiguous during the night.

Validity of tickets, passes, etc., for a day or a number of days may end at midnight, or closing time, when that is earlier. However, if a service (e.g. public transport) operates from for example, 6:00 to 1:00 the next day (which may be noted as 25:00), the last hour may well count as being part of the previous day (also for the arrangement of the timetable). For services depending on the day ("closed on Sundays", "does not run on Fridays", and so on) there is a risk of ambiguity. As an example, for the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Dutch Railways), a day ticket is valid 28 hours, from 0:00 to 28:00 (that is, 4:00 the next day). To give another example, the validity of a pass on London Regional Transport services is until the end of the "transport day" -- that is to say, until 4:30 am on the day after the "expiry" date stamped on the pass.

24 hours vs daytime[link]

To distinguish between a full day and daytime, the word nychthemeron (from Greek for a night and a day) may be used in English for the former, or more colloquially the term 24 hours. In other languages, the latter is also often used. Other languages also have a separate word for a full day, such as vuorokausi in Finnish, ööpäev in Estonian, dygn in Swedish, døgn in Danish, døgn in Norwegian, sólarhringur in Icelandic, etmaal in Dutch, doba in Polish, сутки (sutki) in Russian, суткі (sutki) in Belarusian, доба́ (doba) in Ukrainian, денонощие in Bulgarian and יממה in Hebrew. In Italian, giorno is used to indicate a full day, while dì means daytime. In Spanish, singladura is used, but only as a marine unit of length, being the distance covered in 24 hours.^{[7][not relevant]}

See also[link]

• 10⁴ s, times from 10 kiloseconds to 100 kiloseconds
• Calculating the day of the week
• Daylight
• Daylight saving time
• Meteorological day
• Season, for a discussion of daylight and darkness at various latitudes
• Synodic day

Notes and references[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Day

Look up day in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Definitions of day, night, twilight (USA navy site)
• Formulas to calculate the length of day and night
• Sunrise and sunset, all year long, anywhere
• Show where it is daytime at the moment

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Look up care, carer, or caring in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Care may refer to:

Media[link]

• Care (band), a 1980s alternative rock band from Liverpool
• "Care", a 2001 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (season 3)
• "Care" (Law & Order: UK), the 2009 premiere episode of the British television series, Law & Order: UK

Organizations and projects[link]

• Carpet America Recovery Effort, an American carpet recycling project
• Charged Aerosol Release Experiment, a NASA project concerning dust in space
• Christian Action Research and Education, a Christian lobby group in the United Kingdom
• CARE (New Zealand), Citizens Association for Racial Equality, a former New Zealand organisation
• Control and Rehabilitation Effort, a behavior modification program implemented in 1968 at United States Penitentiary, Marion
• CARE (relief agency), originally "Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe", international organization
• Credit Abuse Resistance Education, an American national program

Types or aspects of care[link]

• Care (Sorge), a term in Heideggerian terminology
• Child care, the act of caring for and supervising minor children
• Day care, the care of a child during the day by a person other than the child's parents or legal guardians
• Duty of care, a legal obligation in tort law
• Elderly care, the fulfillment of the special needs and requirements that are unique to senior citizens
• Ethics of care, a normative ethical theory
• Foster care, a system by which a certified, stand-in "parent(s)" cares for minor children or young people
• Health care, the treatment and management of illness, and the preservation of health through services offered
  • Care of residents, care given to adults or children outside of the patient's home
  • Home care, health care or supportive care provided in the patient's home by healthcare professionals
• Intensive-care medicine, provision of life support or organ support systems in patients who are critically ill
• Managed care, a variety of techniques intended to reduce the cost of providing health benefits and improve the quality of care
• Theology of relational care, a theology of understanding how contemporary followers of Jesus can relate to others
• Vulnerability and Care Theory of Love, the view that care is an integral part of romantic love

People[link]

• Danny Care (born 1987), English rugby union player
• Peter Care (born 1953), British film and video producer

Other[link]

• Career Average Revalued Earnings pension plan, a type of defined benefit pension plan
• Continuous time algebraic Riccati equation, a matrix equation

See also[link]

• Cares (disambiguation)
• Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group for Muslims in North America
• KARE, a television station from Minneapolis

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Ellie Goulding
Goulding performing at Lincoln Hall, Chicago, U.S., March 30, 2011.
Background information
Birth name	Elena Jane Goulding
Born	(1986-12-30) 30 December 1986 (age 25) Hereford, Herefordshire, England
Origin	London, England
Genres	Indie pop, electropop, synthpop, folktronica
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, guitarist, pianist, drummer
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, drums, piano, clarinet, mandolin, tambourine
Years active	2007–present
Labels	Neon Gold, Polydor, Cherrytree, Interscope
Associated acts	Starsmith, Frankmusik, Diana Vickers, Gabriella Cilmi, Little Boots, Tinie Tempah, Erik Hassle, Lissie, Mumford & Sons, Skrillex,Swedish House Mafia, Lupe Fiasco, DJ Daaar
Website	elliegoulding.com

Elena Jane Goulding (born 30 December 1986),^[1] known professionally as Ellie Goulding, is an English singer-songwriter. In 2010 she became the second artist to both top the BBC's annual Sound of... poll and win the Critics' Choice Award at the BRIT Awards in the same year, following Adele's win of both in 2008. After signing to Polydor Records in 2009, she released her first EP in 2009, An Introduction to Ellie Goulding, followed by her debut studio album Lights in 2010. Her album debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and has sold over 650,000 copies in the UK. "Lights" was released in America March 8th 2011, where the title track has been certified platinum by the RIAA (excess of 1 million units sold) ^[2].

Goulding is a soprano,^[3] and her musical style has been compared to that of Kate Nash, Meiko, Lykke Li and Tracey Thorn.^[4]

Background and personal life[link]

Goulding was born and brought up in a small town near Hereford, Herefordshire, the second of four children.^[5][6] She began playing the clarinet at the age of nine, and at 14 began learning guitar. She attended Lady Hawkins' School in Kington, where she won a main part in a school production, the Wizard Of Oz, as the scarecrow. She started songwriting at the age of 15 and while in college she won a singing competition.^[7]

After commencing a drama course, politics course, and an English course at the University of Kent,^[8] where she was exposed to electronic music, she developed her sound on the track "Wish I Stayed" with the help of Starsmith and Frankmusik. Starsmith went on to become her chief collaborator and primary producer of Lights. After two years at Kent, she was advised to take a gap year to pursue singing,^[9][10] and moved to West London.^[11]

She is a keen runner, running six miles every day, and in 2010 announced plans to run a marathon.^[6] In support of her second EP, Run Into the Light, she invited a small number of fans through her Facebook pages, to run with her in seven different cities on her UK tour,^[12] and has announced that she will be doing the same across Europe and the United States. Goulding is considered to have an impressively athletic physique.^[13][14][15]

Music career[link]

Early career[link]

Signed to Polydor Records in September 2009,^[9] Goulding's debut single, "Under the Sheets", was released digitally in the United Kingdom on 15 November 2009,^[16] peaking at number fifty-three on the UK Singles Chart.^[17] In October 2009 she toured the UK supporting Little Boots,^[18] and appeared on Later... with Jools Holland, performing "Under the Sheets" and "Guns and Horses".^[19] "Wish I Stayed" was available as a free download as the Single of the Week on iTunes Store UK from 22–28 December 2009.^[20]

[edit] 2009–11: Lights and Bright Lights

Before the release of her debut studio album, Goulding won the BBC Sound of 2010 poll, which showcases the critics, broadcasters and music industry insiders' top choices for rising stars and artists for the coming year.^[21] She also won the Critics' Choice Award at the 2010 BRIT Awards, which prize made her the second artist to win both in the same year.^[22]

Goulding performing in Amsterdam on 17 September 2010.

Goulding's debut album Lights was released in March 2010, reaching number one on the UK Albums Chart and number six on the Irish Albums Chart.^[23][24][25] Its singles, "Starry Eyed", "Guns and Horses" and "The Writer" peaked at numbers 4, 26, and 19 respectively.^[17] The album has sold over 650,000 copies in the UK as of April 2012.^[26] In August 2010, Goulding released a second EP, Run Into the Light, containing remixes of songs from Lights. The album was supported by Nike and was released through Polydor as a running soundtrack in an effort to get Goulding's music taken up by the national running subculture.^[12]

In November 2010, Lights was re-released as Bright Lights, with six new tracks added. It was originally announced that the lead single from Bright Lights would be the new edit of the title track with a release scheduled for 1 November 2010.^[27] Yet this was scrapped to allow her cover of Elton John's "Your Song" to be released in conjunction with the John Lewis Christmas 2010 advertising campaign in the UK.^[28] The single became Goulding's highest-charting single to date, reaching number two on the UK Singles Chart.^[17] The song also charted in some European countries in early 2011.^[29]

Goulding toured in support of Lights and supported Passion Pit in March 2010 and John Mayall during his British tour in May 2010.^[30] During the summer she performed at a number of festivals. On 29 May she performed at the Dot to Dot Festival in Bristol.^[12] She performed a set on 25 June at the Glastonbury Festival 2010 on the John Peel Stage.^[31] Her third EP was a live recording of part of her set at the iTunes Festival 2010.^[32] The whole set was ultimately included as bonus content on the iTunes version of Bright Lights.^[33] She made her T in the Park debut on 11 July.^[34] She played on the Nissan Juke Arena at the 2010 V Festival in late August.^[35] In September she was part of the line-up at Bestival 2010 on the Isle of Wight.^[36] In support of the album in Europe she performed on the first day of Pukkelpop in Belgium, at the Open'er Festival in Poland and at Benicàssim in Spain.^[37] A track from Lights, "Every Time You Go", was featured in the Vampire Diaries episode "Founder's Day", "Your Biggest Mistake" appeared in an episode of The Inbetweeners.^[38] and "Believe Me" appeared in an episode of 90210. She began a tour of the United States and Canada in February 2011 to coincide with the release of the American edition of Lights.^[39] In August/September 2010 the singer was an opening act on Irish alternative rock band U2's U2 360 Tour in Munich, Germany, Vienna, Austria, and Zurich, Switzerland.^{[citation needed]}

In January 2011 it was announced that the title track from Lights would serve as the second single from Bright Lights.^[40] In early 2011 she recorded an original song for the film Life in a Day. Goulding was placed at number five on Rolling Stone's annual hot list in February 2011.^[41] In February 2011 she returned to the BRIT Awards where she was nominated for Best British Female and Best British Breakthrough Act, but lost out to Laura Marling and Tinie Tempah, respectively.^[42] Previously she had performed at the BRITs launch party where the nominations were announced.

She also played live at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April 2011.^[6] Goulding made her American television debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live on 7 April 2011 performing "Starry Eyed". She appeared as the musical guest on the 700th episode of the Saturday Night Live, broadcast 7 May 2011 and hosted by Tina Fey.^[43][44] She served as one of many live performers at the wedding reception of Prince William and Kate Middleton on 29 April 2011 singing her rendition of "Your Song" for the couple's first dance as well as her hits "The Writer" and "Starry Eyed" and several of William and Kate's personal favourites.^[45] She was introduced to Prince William by Tinie Tempah at a music festival during the summer of 2010. Goulding performed, for the second consecutive year, at Radio 1's Big Weekend on Saturday 14 May.^[46]

Goulding headlined the 2011 Wakestock Festival in Wales, performing on 8 July.^[47] In August she, again, performed at V Festival for her second year in a row.^[48] Following the re-release of Lights and the American release of the album, Goulding said she would soon begin work on a second studio album with an expected release in September 2011.^[49]

On 6 August 2011, Goulding performed at Lollapalooza in Chicago.^[50] Goulding performed at the annual Nobel Peace Prize Concert on 11 December 2011 in Oslo, Norway, where she also served on a panel discussion with Amy Lee of Evanescence and Janelle Monáe.^[51] On 1 December 2011, Goulding performed at the White House during the National Christmas Tree lighting ceremony, alongside the likes of Big Time Rush and will.i.am.^[52] On 18 January 2012, Goulding performed "Lights" on Late Show with David Letterman.^[53]

2011–present: Second studio album[link]

In February 2011, Goulding told the Daily Star that she had plans to release a follow-up to Lights sometime in 2012, commenting, "I'm not going to go away for ages. It'll be out this year or the start of next."^[54] The following month, when asked about the album's musical direction in an interview with gossip website Dean Piper's World, Goulding stated, "It's started to sound very dark and very weird. This album is going to be even more emotional [...] I wanted to make it so there is hope. I want to make an effect whether it's happy or sad."^[55] In April 2012, Goulding stated that she hoped the album would be released in October 2012.^[26] That same month, her single Lights was certified platinum in the United States by the RIAA ^[56].

Work with other artists[link]

Goulding co-wrote "Love Me 'Cause You Want To" for Gabriella Cilmi's second album, Ten, and three songs, "Remake Me + You", "Notice" and "Jumping Into Rivers", for Diana Vickers's debut album, Songs from the Tainted Cherry Tree.^[57] Her song "Not Following" was used by German singer Lena on her debut album My Cassette Player.^[58] Goulding was featured on rapper Tinie Tempah's single "Wonderman" from his debut studio album Disc-Overy. Goulding's "Under the Sheets" was also remixed by American rap duo Chiddy Bang, featured on their 2010 mixtape Air Swell, and by DJ Frenzy (F^K Y3AH! Breaks Mix). Frankmusik, who produced Goulding's song "Wish I Stayed", told Digital Spy he hoped to collaborate with her on his second album, Do It in the AM.^[59] "Lights" was remixed by Bassnectar, which appears on his 2011 album Divergent Spectrum.

On 19 September 2011, it was announced that Goulding would open for Katy Perry on her "California Dreams Tour", replacing Jessie J due to a foot injury.^[60][61]

On 14 December 2011, Mika announced that Goulding had involvement in his upcoming album The Origin of Love.^[62]

Goulding collaborated with American electro artist and producer Skrillex on a song titled "Summit", included on his 2011 EP Bangarang.

Discography[link]

• 2010: Lights

Tours[link]