Ko koe ki tēna, ko ahau ki tēnei kīwai o te kete: Exploring Collaboration across a Range of Recent Early Childhood Studies

The concept of relationality inherent in researching teaching and learning in early education is complex and multifaceted. It is well noted that relationships that make any kind of researching, teaching, and learning possible, let alone effective, are reliant on building collaborative partnerships between teachers, academic researchers, and others with an invested interest in the educational project (e.g., tamariki [children] and whānau [parents])—as well as striving to make (deep and meaningful) connections between knowledge, practice, and research (Nuttall, 2010). Developing possibilities for these relationships to be transformative (i.e., for teachers and researchers to view themselves/each other and the relationships developed as having agency to bring about social, cultural, educational change) relies on an understanding of the complexities and multifaceted nature of these relationships—in relation to experiences encountered in the wider (local/global) world we live in; an approach Taylor (2008) refers to as “a planetary view” (p. 9). From this perspective, transformation demands that those involved develop a critical and reflexive understanding of teaching, learning, early childhood care, and education, and of research. This chapter explores the complexities and possibilities of these intersecting relationships in response to our engagement in a number of Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI)¹ research projects (Dalli, Rockel, Duhn, Craw, & Doyle, 2011; Haynes, Cardno, & Craw, 2007; Ritchie, Duhn, Rau, & Craw, 2010; Ritchie & Rau, 2006, 2008).