Program Effectiveness
Journal Article
And So We Plough Along
The Nature and Nurture of Partnerships for Inquiry
Date
December 19, 2017
By Barnett, W. S., & Frede, E. C. (2001).
New approaches to inquiry that partner researchers with practitioners and policy makers have become more common in the early childhood field as it has embraced a wider variety of research traditions. In this introductory article for the special issue on partnerships for inquiry, we explore the nature, origins, and purposes of collaborative research in early childhood. We also identify and discuss the challenges that arise in conducting collaborative research. The other articles in this special issue are discussed as they illustrate the diverse approaches to collaboration and provide examples of the challenges and how they are dealt with in practice. Equality between partners emerges as a major issue based on our explorations of the literature and the other articles in this special issue.
The Authors
W. Steven (Steve) Barnett is a Board of Governors Professor and the founder and Senior Co-Director of the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) at Rutgers University. Dr. Barnett’s work primarily focuses on public policies regarding early childhood education, child care, and child development.
In her work, Dr. Frede applies what she has learned throughout her varied career in early childhood education, including experience as a teacher of ages 0-8, curriculum and professional development specialist at the HighScope Foundation, teacher educator at The College of New Jersey, researcher, pre-k administrator for the New Jersey Department of Education, education lead in a large Head Start grantee and early learning lead at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.