This article introduces a theoretical framework for analysing preschool teaching as a historically-grounded societal practice. The aim is to present a unified framework that can be used to analyse and compare both historical and contemporary examples of preschool teaching practice within and across national traditions. The framework has two main components, an analysis of preschool teaching as a practice, formed in relation to societal needs, and an analysis of the categorical relations which necessarily must be addressed in preschool teaching activity. The framework is introduced and illustrated through the analysis of one of the earliest recorded examples of preschool education (initiated by J. F. Oberlin in northeastern France in 1767). The general idea of societal need is elaborated as a way of analysing practices, and a general analytic schema is presented for characterising preschool teaching as a practice. (author abstract)