ABSTRACT
We began this book focusing on the concepts of accountability and responsibility, and now, at the end of this particular journey, those concepts are important to consider in the context of teacher research, and new avenues to explore. As educators and practitioners, the more we learn about young children and their interests, the more questions tend to arise. The words research and inquiry are often used interchangeably, but there is a distinction made by Cochran-Smith & Lytle (2009) that is useful for the purposes of discussion in this chapter. Cochran-Smith & Lytle describe inquiry as a “somewhat softer word” than research, and underscore the idea that research is “not simply a beneficial, but benign, form of professional development,” but “it is also a valuable mode of critique of the inequities in schools and society and of knowledge hierarchies” (p. ix).
