Doing ethnographic research with young children involves a number of challenges as adults are perceived as powerful and controlling of children's lives. In this paper I review my comparative ethnographic research of preschool children in the United States and Italy. The focus is on field entry, establishing participant status, and the collection of field notes and audiovisual data. I briefly review field entry procedures I employed in field sites in the United States and Italy. I discuss how my data collection methods over time became gradually more open to children's direct input which is what I mean by "research with as opposed to on children". Finally, using the research from Modena, Italy I discuss a longitudinal ethnography across key transition periods in children's lives. This ethnography involved my staying with and continuing to observe and interview the children as the entered first grade and throughout their five years of elementary school.
Ethnography; Children's peer cultures; Preschool education; United States and Italy