A Cultural-Historical Methodology for Researching Early Childhood Education

Abstract

There are many ways to frame research, and there is a plethora of ways that researchers have theorised and discussed their study designs. In this methodology chapter, we present an overview of researching in early childhood education from a cultural-historical perspective. We specifically discuss aspects of a cultural-historical methodology which are related to play and development in early childhood settings. In this chapter we examine three key points. First we discuss what new perspectives the cultural-historical methodology can bring to the field of early childhood education research. Second, we show what a cultural-historical methodology will allow researchers to do. Finally, we (1) theorise a set of cultural-historical principles drawn directly from Vygotsky’s legacy but in the context of contemporary research practices in early childhood education; (2) conceptualise digital tools dialectically, as both a research tool for capturing observations of practices and as a cultural tool for the development of young children, where microgenetic changes are made visible and (3) discuss the doubleness of the researcher, as a participant in the research site and as a researcher collecting data. Through the lens of cultural-historical theory, we examine the contemporary challenges and conceptualisations of researching in early childhood education contexts.