The research project described in this article began because two early childhood organisations, one in England and the other in Ireland, were interested in sharing their ideas about pedagogy. The proposal was to collect data about pedagogic perspectives and practices from one preschool setting linked to each organisation so that similarities and difference between them could be raised and possible implications for further training and development could be discussed. The methodology used was polyvocal ethnography, drawing on the method used by Tobin et al. (1989. Preschool in Three Cultures. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press). Two episodes from a day in the life of each setting were filmed and the staff teams were invited to discuss and critically reflect on their own and each other's practices. These discussions provided the data. To begin with, the data was analysed in terms of established 'best practice'. Then, with encouragement from two 'critical friends', the researchers shifted towards more critical engagement with the data, raising questions about the values, goals and agendas embedded in the identified pedagogic practices. The shift generated troubling perspectives, uncertainty, conflict and more questions than answers. The article focuses on the challenges in critical reflection and the researchers' 'felt' experience of conflict. It alerts the practitioner researcher and the reader to the cultural, political and personal aspects in research and proposes an obligation to engage in argumentation (Shotter, J. 1993. Cultural Politics of Everyday Life. Milton Keynes: Open University) or 'agonistic politics' (Moss, P. 2007. "Meetings Across the Paradigmatic Divide." Educational Philosophy and Theory 39: 229-245) so that 'dominant discourses' and 'taken-for-granted truths' are challenged. It advocates the use of polyvocal ethnography as an education tool that can make critique between teachers and learners possible. While the scale of this research is extremely limited and the findings consequently extremely tentative, the method has the possibility of generating more democratic debate, more hegemonic resistance and more openness and honesty among practitioner researchers. (author abstract)