openness toone another’sknowledge influences their openness to the knowledge
of the children with whom they work. The influence extends to the hidden cur-
riculum, in that children learn about knowledge and about learning through‘col-
lective pedagogy’ (Fleer 2010 ) and through their observations of relational
engagements among teaching teams in their educational settings.
Such a design in future teacher education would carefully connect the practices
of research, teaching and learning through an inter-subjective knowledge con-
struction, resonant withTe Whāriki’ssocio-cultural emphasis on sharing narratives
of teaching and learning, and with a pedagogy of listening. Furthermore, it reflects
the crucial importance of mutual trust in the sharing of perspectives, enabling
voices to be heard and attention to be paid to how engaging in the research impacts
on the‘feeling’of being a professional (Dall’Alba 2009 ). A critical ecological
ethnographic approach generates space for professional dialogues, enabling rich
understandings of how knowledge construction occurs, how it is experienced by the
community, and how talking about it can change experiences. Studyingflows of
knowledge in teaching teams should be seen as an ongoing network of relationships
among student teachers, graduate teachers and teacher educators. As part of a
shared commitment to teaching and learning, such study should be sustained well
beyond the point of a student teacher’s graduation. As a research method, the next
section of the article proposes critical ecological ethnography as a means to support
and guide these spaces, relationships, and networks.
53.5 Researching Flows of Knowledge
In thisfinal section, we address the role of research in making sense of how
teaching teams experienceflows of knowledge. Our thinking leads us to a com-
bination of two methodologies: critical ecology and ethnography. Both method-
ologies require a sensitive involvement of any outsider researchers within everyday
centre life, fostering a close professional relationship within the centre.
The critical ecological methodology developed inEarly childhood grows up:
Towards a critical ecology of the profession(Dalli et al. 2012 ) demonstrates the
importance of working closely with early childhood centre communities to share
in-depth knowledge about how these communities work and how they are expe-
rienced. Through a critical ecology the research design requires an“alertness to the
challenges in its settings and to the strengths that can be brought to bear to make the
present better”(Dalli 2010 , p. 70), to respect and consider the setting and both its
wider and intricate contextual elements. The central elements of a critical ecology
are drawn into ethnography enabling the use of various lenses to understand the
micro and macro influences of the teaching team’s experiences of sharing and
constructing knowledge. The ethnographic approach places the teacher education
researchers in their own community of interest, based on the aspiration to reduce
barriers to observation and discussion of phenomena, and to increase sensitivity to
the meaning of the shared experiences. The choice of ethnography as a method
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