Collaborative capacity building in early childhood communities in Chile

The focus of this chapter is the engagement of the four co-authors in a cross-national action research project called Futuro Infantil Hoy (FIH) developed in Chile by Chilean early childhood centre-based educators and Australian university-based researchers. It describes how co-authors Monica and Silvia collaborated as co-researchers with Linda and Christine and played an active leadership role in the iterative processes involved in developing the project, suggesting and informing each subsequent phase of action and researching the process. The chapter records a culminating cycle of practitioner research and is particularly concerned with Sylvia and Monica's perspectives about their own learning and change. By documenting how we worked together as experienced and new researchers and revealing the responses, feelings and actions of the practitioner researchers we hope to provide insights into what is at stake when educators enter into collaborative relationships with others and transform themselves as practitioner researchers. Our key themes include the explicit socioculturally informed epistemological and ontological beliefs introduced by the Australian team and the implications of these for collaborations in practitioner research. Other key themes are the collaboration and capacity building embedded in the project and the way the Australian researchers therefore adopted an ongoing reflective action research frame, aiming to avoid the pitfalls associated with being positioned as 'experts'. Readers will see how the use of a thoughtfully chosen theoretical framing can inform, guide and give meaning to their own practitioner research. They can see how sustainable change can be planned, implemented, extended and embedded into practice, strengthening both planning and outcomes of practitioner research. These insights may be helpful for educators planning their own practitioner research projects.