There is currently widespread international concern with delivering high-quality early childhood education and care to young children. Crucial to this effort is an appropriate way of defining and monitoring quality. This article explores the micro-context of quality care, that is, the nature of interactions between children and others (both teachers and peers). The article begins by defining "educare," a term which it adopts as appropriate for what should be occurring in early childhood educational settings. It next moves into a discussion of a sociocultural framework of child development within the educare perspective, arguing against developmentally appropriate practice and in favor of increased attention to the social and cultural context of development and adults' role in it. The article then presents five principles of quality in educare settings, based largely on Vygotsky's ideas on child development (for example, the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and scaffolding) as the internalization of social interactions and processes. The article then provides a more detailed discussion of some of these components of quality, such as letting learning drive development (rather than vice versa), creating intersubjectivity, recognizing the cultural context of educational goals, and understanding children's active role in the developmental process. Contains 34 references. (EV)