Early childhood education and care (ECEC) remains a priority area for public policy, internationally and in Australia. However, an analysis of empirical research published internationally up to 2008 has identified a bias toward positivist methodologies within a “scientific/psychological’ rather than educational perspective and with a focus on the interactions between preschoolers, family, and child care variables. For some researchers, this bias raises concerns that public policy in ECEC is based on limited research perspectives. This chapter examines research focusing on the Australian context and published between 2010 and 2014 to determine whether this bias exists in Australian research. We explore the quality of ECEC research to develop an overall understanding of the current situation of ECEC research in Australia. Our findings suggest that Australian research in ECEC is very dissimilar to research published internationally, especially in its reliance on qualitative paradigms and a focus on the educators (principals, teachers, and teacher aides). The strong qualitative focus may allow a diverse range of voices within the ECEC sector to be heard and identified, moving beyond traditional notions of historically marginalized individuals and communities that dominate other education research areas.

幼儿教育和保育（ECEC）仍然是国际上和澳大利亚公共政策的优先领域。然而，对截至2008年国际上的实证研究的分析发现，在“科学/心理学”而非教育的视角下偏向于实证主义方法论，并且侧重于学龄前儿童，家庭和儿童保育变量之间的相互作用。对于某些研究人员而言，这种偏见引起了人们的关注，即ECEC中的公共政策基于有限的研究视角。本章研究了针对澳大利亚背景的研究，该研究于2010年至2014年间发表，以确定这种偏见是否存在于澳大利亚研究中。我们探索ECEC研究的质量，以全面了解澳大利亚ECEC研究的现状。我们的发现表明，澳大利亚在ECEC中的研究与国际上发表的研究非常不同，特别是它依赖于定性范式，并且侧重于教育者（本人，教师和教师助手）。强烈的定性关注可以使ECEC部门内的各种声音被听到和识别，超越了在其他教育研究领域占主导地位的，历史上处于边缘地位的个人和社区的传统观念。