'Andrea Nolan and her colleagues have written a uniquely wise and reader-friendly account of all aspects of researching early childhood. Unlike some similar-sounding texts, this is not a dumbed-down account, a 'beginner's guide to writing your research project', but a serious consideration of the whole sequence of undertaking research in the field, which tackles both the big issues and the difficult terminology in a clear and accessible way. It achieves this through the device of accompanying a very disparate group of researchers, from undergraduates to doctoral students and early-career professionals, through the stages of their research journey, from developing their early ideas through to writing up their findings. The featured researchers describe their repeated dilemmas and the decisions they have to make as they design and conduct their studies. These decisions are shown as embedded within much larger constructs about the nature of childhood and the appropriate forms of provision for young children and families - issues which are both political and ethical. The authors describe both the broad issues and the small, individual, decisions which lie within them with a depth of understanding which ensures that using the book can be a pleasure as well as a task for researchers as they set out to construct their own new knowledge about early childhood'
-Liz Brooker
Reader in Early Childhood, University of London Institute of Education
This is a useful addition to the bookshelf of texts on research into early childhood, and is particularly aimed at a readership of students working towards higher degrees. Each chapter is clearly organised, starting with the key questions that will be dealt with in the chapter, sub-headings to enable the reader to keep track of the narrative and a set of 'reflection point' questions for the reader as they finish the chapter...A distinctive strength of the book is the way in which the authors use aspects of students' reflections on the research enterprise as the students developed their projects. These exemplify the key points that are being made. For two doctoral students, Lara using qualitative and Amy using quantitative methods, we are able to follow them through the whole journey, from choosing a research topic, to their final reflections and discussion of their postdoctoral lives. This gives a refreshing slant on the topics discussed. -- Bridget A. Egan, Faculty of Education Health & Social Care, University of Winchester, Winchester, UK
