This open access book addresses the growing trend in the field of early childhood education and
care (ECEC) research named collaborative knowledge building in which researchers and ECEC
personnel collaborate. This kind of research encompasses a number of approaches such as design
studies action studies Learning Studies Lesson Studies and combined research and
development studies. There are important differences between these approaches but they also
share some features which makes it possible to see them as examples of a particular tradition
of knowledge building. Collaborative knowledge building constitutes close ties between
developing practices of early childhood education and care and generating empirically grounded
theoretical knowledge. This book contributes to the methodology of practices-developing
research by mapping this movement through exemplifying themes actualised in such studies and
through conceptualizing important and recurring gains and challenges. It also describes how the
latter can be taken on.
