Overview & excerpts from Inquiry as Stance: Practitioner Research for the Next Generation by Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Susan L. Lytle

1. What is an inquiry stance?
Excerpts from Inquiry as
Stance: Practitioner Research
for the Next Generation
Anne Marie Liebel
Health Communication Partners LLC

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H0AFt
UreDA
Dr. Susan Lytle talks about Inquiry As Stance

3. Taking an inquiry stance
• In everyday language, ‘stance’ is used to describe body
postures, as in sports or dance, and also to describe political
positions…
• In research, ‘stance’ means the perspectives through which
researchers frame their questions, observations, and
interpretations…

4. An inquiry stance is…
•A theory of action for transforming
education
•A dynamic and fluid way of knowing and
being in the world of education

5. An inquiry stance…
•Is a world view, a critical habit of mind
•Challenges prevailing assumptions about practice
•Recognizes practitioners and practitioner
knowledge is central to the goal of transforming
education

6. A key assumption
A core part of the knowledge and expertise
necessary for transforming education is in the
questions, theories and strategies generated by
practitioners themselves and their interrogation of
others’ knowledge, theories and practices.

7. Another way to say this…
•Practitioners who are deeply engaged in the work of
teaching and learning know something about this
work!
•And we have the capacity to generate and critique
knowledge, improve practice, and enhance peoples’
life chances.

8. Blurred boundaries
• Between leaders and followers
• Between experts and novices
• Between theory and practice
• Between knowing and doing
• Between researcher and teacher

9. What an inquiry stance is NOT
• Not something you do and then stop
• Not when an educator is given a problem and told to solve it
w/o room for questioning
• Not when educators faithfully implement outside expertise
& knowledge w/o room for questioning
• Not only about figuring out how to get things done…

10. An inquiry stance also involves asking
•What to get done
•Why to get it done
•Who decides
•Whose interests are served

11. Transformative power
• Clashes with many prevailing ideas about educators,
schools/institutions, and education
• Rejects the typical hierarchy of outside experts’ knowledge being
prized above teachers’ local knowledge
• Not merely a critique or argument against ‘the system’

12. Problematizing
• What it means to generate knowledge
• Who generates it
• What counts as knowledge and to whom
• How knowledge is used in context
• What you know
• Your own practice
…these are all up for question!

13. What it means to learn from inquiry
•Working in groups, pairs, networks to support each
other and help bring about change
•Working together to uncover, articulate, and
question their own assumptions about teaching,
learning and schools/instutions
•Posing problems that require studying our own
teaching and institutions
•Using variety of resources (including ‘formal’
academic research)

14. A closing thought:
• When practitioners work from an inquiry stance, the goal is that their
students will have basic knowledge and skills, to be sure, but also
that they will raise questions about knowledge sources and uses, and
develop the skills of critique, deliberation, and analysis.