The childcare of toddlers in day nurseries is not only a relevant topic of education policy, but for some time it has more and more attracted the attention of scientists of different disciplines. Thus results were generated in great quantities. The question, how children may experience the everyday life in day nurseries, is either worked out in a rudimentary way, or is mostly discussed with regard to conditions of optimal support, more frequently in association with the terminology of successful childish development and sometimes in relation to the keyword “early education”. In this context it is remarkable, that these studies incrementally produce quantified data and – that’s the point – there are often no fundamentally discussions with respect to methodological issues, critical explanations of methods and implications for theory and practical terms. Based on these facts the project “Wiener Kinderkrippenstudie” is realised at the Institute of Educational Research of the University of Vienna. Within this project it is examine how toddlers may experience the period of familiarization outside the family (transition phase), and which factors prove to be useful or rather incriminating during this period. Thus, the nodal point of this project is the child’s experience being separated from the familiar parent relationship and the thereby caused negative emotions. The transition phase is associated with (possible) inculpative situations and emotions for children, which are needed to cope with. This coping-process is seen as a process of education, too. For analyse this process a bundle of qualitative and quantitative methods has been set up for data collecting and evaluation. Videography is also part of it. The videography of the Viennese research project is central in this presentation, along with theoretical, methodical and (critically reflecting) methodological considerations. With this in mind, the contribution will - expatiate on the theoretically based understanding of „education“ and „process of education“, - demonstrate, what has been captured by mean of the videography and how the codingsystem works and - present first results of the videoanalysis. Moreover, it will be discussed: - which arguments leaded to the decision for videography; - how the empirically explored process of education imply the necessity, to define indicators of successfully transition/education; - pre-assumptions regarding the definition of these indicators; - the connections between the reported points of discussion;

The chosen method is videography. At three different times the observed child was filmed by the fieldworker at the day nursery: in the first two weeks, the toddler were left in the centre without the parent’s presence, after two months in the setting, and again after four months in the setting. The fieldworkers videotaped the children’s arrival, as well as an hour of child activity later in the morning. The recorded observation of the arrival lasted maximal 25 minutes. It started as soon as the study child entered care, and included parental leave-taking, as well as 20 minutes of child activity after the parent had left the centre. The recorded 1-hour observation later in the morning typically included some group activity as well as free play. Trained raters coded the video-taped observations. The generated data were evaluated statistically.

It is intended to show the statistically analyses results which describe the children’s reactions to child care entry and their patterns of behaviour change during their first months in care. This includes results concerning the children’s level of involvement during their transition phase in terms of their affect, their social participation, and their interest, as well as and changes over time in these dimensions. Reflections concerning theory of education and methodological thoughts build the framework for the presentation and interpretation of the results.