And so we plough along: the nature and nurture of partnerships for inquiry

New approaches to inquiry that partner researchers with practitioners and p olicy makers have become more common in the early childhood field as it has embraced a wider variety of research traditions. In this introductory arti cle for the special issue on partnerships for inquiry, we explore the natur e, origins, and purposes of collaborative research in early childhood. We a lso identify and discuss the challenges that arise in conducting collaborat ive research. The other articles in this special issue are discussed as the y illustrate the diverse approaches to collaboration and provide examples o f the challenges and how they are dealt with in practice. Equality between partners emerges as a major issue based on our explorations of the literatu re and the other articles in this special issue. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science inc. All rights reserved.