Infants' lives in childcare: crafting research evidence

Increasing numbers of infants are being placed in group-based early childhood services, often for longer periods of time than previously. In New Zealand, for example, enrollments of infants below one year of age in licensed early childhood services have, over the last five years, increased more than for any other age group (Mintrom, 2011). The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child highlights the need to respect the agency and perspectives of even the youngest children (United Nations, 2006; United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2005). It is timely, therefore, to consider its implications for infant early childhood decation and care. In this article, we describe a research project in which we are seeking to understand what life is like for infants in group-based care from the infants' perspectives. We focus on the methods we have used to generate data. We begin by explaining our motivation for undertaking the project.