Editorial

In the 20 years since inception, the EECER journal has aimed to provide a highly rigorous and scholarly forum for early childhood research which is multi-professional, multi-sectoral, multi-disciplinary and multi-paradigmic. EECERJ editorial policy has genuinely set out to be respectful and inclusive of a range of different paradigms, methodologies and research designs, with the intention of giving visibility and status to a range of different knowledge generation possibilities. It has also set out to celebrate and respect different and diverse voices in the field of early childhood.

From the vantage point of the editorship of the EECERJ, over recent years we have seen shifting paradigms within European research in early childhood. At a well attended symposium in this year's EECERA conference in Geneva, Joao Formosinho suggested that we are approaching what he termed an ‘empirical ceiling’ in early childhood studies. This is a provactive statement, but his point was that we have many large international studies which claim to be ‘evidence-based’, and that give a consistent message about the importance of quality and professionalization in the early years, and that high quality provision is essential for effective early intervention. Formosinho claimed that at one level, the evidence is now so strong that perhaps we no longer need more large scale, meta-studies of the impact and outcomes of early childhood provision. Even the World Bank is now convinced of the social payback from investment in early year's services. Developments in early childhood policy and practice have benefited enormously from this robust evidence base and these studies have pioneered the massive shift in investment towards early childhood internationally. Their value is clear.

However, this does not mean researchers in early childhood should feel their task is completed. We agree with Formosinho, who went on to argue that what was now urgently needed were more detailed, fine grain, qualitative studies on the concept of ‘quality’ itself, and the complex, practice realities which practitioners struggle with in early years' settings to make a difference to children's and families lives. Such work would necessarily have to be qualitatively orientated and to be grounded in the real world of policy and practice. Such research can be termed ‘praxiological’ (Formosinho and Formosinho 2012, forthcoming) or ‘phronetic’ (Flyvbjerg 2001), both of whom are arguing for a radical shift in research in human sciences away from the natural sciences model as an ideal towards something which is more relevant to the real world of practice. Such debates over the relative validity and utility of different paradigms are old and often presented as a dichotomy with competing, polarised, and opposing extremes of a methodological continuum. However, we believe that this perceived tension between the approaches is not useful to the sector. Indeed, Aristotle, who distinguished between two intellectual virtues, Sophia (theoretical, rational or scientific wisdom) and Phronesis (practice or action which delivers effects), argued that the highest pursuit of wisdom requires both. We would agree.

As research in early childhood shifts to make space for this more qualitatively and practice oriented paradigm, with its diverse methodologies, many using more participatory and democratic approaches to knowledge creation, it becomes important that these alternative paradigms and methods also make clear their claim to be offering an ‘evidence-based’ approach. The term ‘evidence-based’ has far too often been used as a short hand for quasi-experimental, randomised controlled test, research studies, as if only these kinds of study can make a claim to be robust and significant. However, this denies the strong evidence contained in the different but equally valid, robust and useful praxiological and practice-based studies. We refute the often perceived lower status of such studies and argue strongly that early childhood needs the strength of a wide variety of paradigmic approaches, methodologies and research designs, each offering a unique and important contribution to the growing knowledge base of the sector. This epistemological richness will offer all those involved in policy and practice a more complex, diverse and robust evidence base on which to base policy and practice decisions.

In EECERA at conference and in the journal we are witnessing a shift which appears to indicate that the time has come for ‘phronetic’ or ‘praxiological’ research to take its rightful place within the canon of ‘evidence-based’ and high value research in the field of early childhood. This shift is also requiring us in the field to face some hard, ethical- and value-based, questions, and to acknowledge that there are many different perspectives and lived realities within any context which should be acknowledged and given voice within the research and knowledge creation process. To do this rigorously and respectfully is challenging but we have found a real determination in the field to raise the quality and robustness of such research to the highest standards. The EECERJ, which meets the highest standards of scholarship internationally, provides a strong indicator of the emergent confidence and capacity of those researchers adopting the phronetic or praxiological paradigm. We encourage and support the growing profile and status of this practice-based paradigm, alongside an inclusive and respectful stance towards other sophic or epistemic paradigms.

In this edition of the journal we can see this diversity and complexity of paradigm in action. The nine papers in this issue from Australia, Germany, Greece, New Zealand, Norway, Scotland, Sweden and The Netherlands demonstrate that EECERJ contributors are drawn from across the world. In fact EECERJ editorial policy ensures this diversity: in any issue no more three papers may originate from any one country and the Journal frequently has cross national, collaborating authors. A further level of diversity comes in the democratization of the location of knowledge, moving beyond the concept of an objective researcher distanced from practice or policy to include authors who themselves might be practitioners, trainers, policy-makers or administrators capturing children's voices, parents' voices and the reflections of practitioners. A number of the papers are also directly concerned with exploring diversity, such as ethnic or socio-economic differences, while other papers reveal the breadth of issues which are being explored, from computers to children's friendships. The papers also reveal a mix of phronetic and sophic methodologies. This is certainly a rich, diverse and complex range of studies which exemplify the growing confidence of the sector to use the paradigm of their choice with confidence.