In the last two decades, a new informal and formal early childhood care and education (ECCE) institution emerged and expanded in Turkey. Initially gaining popularity through word of mouth, women started informal Islamic preschools in their apartments to serve families in disadvantaged neighborhoods with varying levels of support from existing networks of Islamic groups. Some of them, named sibyan mektebi, composed of words no longer used in modern Turkish, referred to the Ottoman education institutions shut down in the early twentieth-century modernization reforms. The current government and local authorities allowed, supported, and coopted these institutions, naming them “community-based education models.” Simultaneously, the middle- and upper-class promoted their versions of Islamic preschools, “value-based preschools,” in line with the new legal frameworks for childcare and education. Early education enrollment rates for five-year-old children in Turkey increased tremendously, although falling behind in national and international goals for other age groups.Using mixed methods and drawing upon theories on social policy, education, urban sociology, and gender, I examine why and how the Islamic preschools emerged and expanded. Unlike previous scholarship findings, these preschools emerged within a culturally conservative context characterized by low levels of participation by women in the labor force. To understand this, I interviewed sixty parents, teachers, NGO representatives, and policymakers. I also analyzed statistics, policy documents, NGO reports, and newspaper coverage of education. I found that women in disadvantaged neighborhoods, even when they did not work, demanded an institutionalized form of ECCE because of changes in the urban space and reciprocal care relationships. The new arrangement had to be in line with their values, justifying the new childcare arrangements. The middle- and upper-class families primarily preferred Islamic preschools because they wanted to outsource culture transmission to their children and protect them from other influences. I found that the ad-hoc social policymaking structure at the macro-level utilized a local demand for early childhood care and education for a conservative project in education without transforming the familial care regime dependent on women’s labor. Counter to gender scholars researching the Middle East, who posit women develop and practice agency in culturally conservative settings, I argue it is more accurate to depict these processes within the macro-level context as well as the micro-setting as shaped by the constraints imposed by the state, cultural conservatism, and the market.