Methodological Issues in Video Based Research on Immigrant Children and Parents in Early Childhood Settings

The chapter presents the design and methods of an international study “Children Crossing Borders”. This study extends the video-cued, multivocal ethnographic approach introduced by J.Tobin in Preschool in Three Cultures (1989). The video-cued, dialogical approach we employ in the study uses videos of a typical preschool day as the starting point to give voice to the beliefs and concerns of teachers and immigrant parents about the education and care of young children. Using the process of shooting and editing a video we made in a preschool in Milan as an example, we discuss the video-cued ethnographic method and reflect on its connections to phenomenological research. We highlight the importance of narrative, drama, plot, and the interplay between the artificial and the real in our version of video ethnography.