Inquiry as Stance: Practitioner Research for the Next Generation

In this long-awaited sequel to Inside/Outside: Teacher Research and Knowledge, two leaders in the field of practitioner research offer a radically different view of the relationship of knowledge and practice and of the role of practitioners in educational change. In their new book, the authors put forward the notion of inquiry as stance as a challenge to the current arrangements and outcomes of schools and other educational contexts. They call for practitioner researchers in local settings across the United States and around the world to ally their work with others as part of larger social and intellectual movements for social change and social justice.

Part I is a set of five essays that conceptualize inquiry as a stance and as a transformative theory of action that repositions the collective intellectual capacity of practitioners. Part II is a set of eight chapters written by eight differently positioned practitioners who are or were engaged in practitioner research in K–12 schools or teacher education. Part III offers a unique format for exploring inquiry as stance in the next generation―a readers’ theatre script that juxtaposes and co-mingles 20 practitioners’ voices in a performance-oriented format. Together the three parts of the book point to rich possibilities for practitioner inquiry in the next generation.

Contributors: Rebecca Akin, Gerald Campano, Delvin Dinkins, Kelly A. Harper, Gillian Maimon, Gary McPhail, Swati Mehta, Rob Simon, and Diane Waff

Marilyn Cochran-Smith holds the John E. Cawthorne Chair in Teacher Education for Urban Schools and directs the Doctoral Program in Curriculum and Instruction at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education. Susan L. Lytle is Associate Professor of Education, Chair of the Language and Literacy in Education Division, and Director of the Program in Reading/Writing/Literacy at the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania.