Enabling Knowledge Development Relevant for ECEC

Abstract

AbstractIn this first chapter of the volume (Wallerstedt, Brooks, Ødegaard & Pramling, this volume), we will introduce the themes and chapters included. Eight examples of research projects will be given, and even if many denotations are used in the different chapters to describe the methods used, they are all aimed at improving preschool practice and take on social problems in a broader sense. We will discuss how development projects or studies, research projects and innovation, inquiry-based research and professional development programmes, and action research approach relate to praxis-related methodology and its key references. A central aspect is that the focus is on problems that are experienced in preschool, even if the process of formulating these problems differs. Sometimes it is the preschool that initiates contact with academia, while other times it is the researchers who consider it important to collaborate with preschools. Regardless, they are all collaboration projects in which participants from preschools and participants from academia (i.e. researchers) work together, but often in a more explorative way, compared to other studies within the development and praxis-related research tradition.