ABSTRACT
This chapter gives an overview of the participatory inquiry process (PIP); the specific PIP phases are described in Chapters 6-9. Before detailing PIP, it is important to consider ethics, which are central to informed decisions directed toward ends that have relational, aspirational, and lifeaffirming consequences in schools. We are speaking of ethics in the broad sense of the term, which are tied to both personal and professional decisions, actions, and the recognition that “an ethical expert is nothing more or less than a full participant in a community” (Varela, 1992, p. 24). Life-affirming, solar ethics are those aspirational ethics that inform a way of living; a form of loving life by pouring our hearts into living, deciding, and acting as compassionately and passionately as possible; in other words, putting on a good show and doing the best we can, regardless of our own weakness and flaws, in any given circumstances we face (Cupitt, 1995).
