Under Observation. Ethnographic Research In The Field Of Early Childhood Education And Care

In the slipstream of increasing research activities on early childhood education and care (ECEC) during the last decades also ethnographic studies became an important resource for the production of scientific knowledge in this research area. Going out from a review of relevant literature the paper intends to enquire about the status the field of ECEC has in different studies for the production of ethnographic knowledge about ECEC. After working out that the notion of "field" in ECEC-related ethnography mainly is defined in relation to a certain place the paper discusses the limits of this definition and the possibilities of an alternative conceptualization of the research field in ECEC-related ethnography, which may allow the field of ECEC becoming a discrete object of investigation.